Frederick W. Taylor, father of scientific management

FREDERICK W. TAYLOR
FATHER OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

Frederic!^ JV. Taylor

FATHER OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

BY

FRANK BARKLEY COPLEY

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME II

HARPER AND BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

MCMXXIII

r

^, p.

b

COPYRIGHT, 1923,
BY HARPER & BROTHERS

THE PLIMPTON PRESS-NORWOOD • MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

^0 IHI^

CONTENTS

VOLUME TWO
BOOK V — THE GREAT ADVENTURE AT BETHLEHEM

CHAPTER PAGE

I. His Call to Bethlehem 3

II. The Opposing Groups 15

III. Barth Devises his Slide Rule 26

IV. Systemizing Schmidt and his Fellows 37

V. A Tale of Shoveling 56

VI. Taylor and his Assistants 68

VII. The Discovery that Led to High-Speed Steel 79

VIII. How THE Discovery was Made 91

IX. What Followed the Discovery 107

X. Progress with Shop Methods and Mechanisms 119

XI. The Overthrow 139

XII. After Taylor Left 156

BOOK VI — SERVING THE PUBLIC WITHOUT PAY

I. Back in Germantown 167

II. The First Complete Developments of his System .... 175

III. Boxly ; 186

IV. Better Greens for Golfers 202

V. On the Links 215

VI. En Famille 224

VII. His Campaign and its Motives 233

VIII. President of the A. S. M. E 243

IX. On Colleges and Education 260

X. Lecturing at Home and Afield 281

XI. Serving the Navy 299

XII. Serving the Army 328

XIII. Toward the Close 0F1910 353

BOOK VII — IN CONCLUSION

I. The Railroads and Scientific Management 369

II. The Publication of his Last Paper 378

V

V

7A%^\ (a^ b^ccMJ

vi CONTENTS

PAGE

III. The Crowded Year of 191 1 » 385

IV. Toiling on Toward the Evening 394

V. On Labor Leaders and Unions 403

VI. No Compromise 417

VII. The Onc®ming of the Shadow 433

VIII. His Final Effort 443

IX. The End of the Pilgrimage 45 1

ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME TWO

PAGE

BoxLY Frontisfiece

Carl G. Barth 3°

A Barth Slide Rule 3 ^

A Group of Bethlehem Steel Company Executives 84

The High-Speed Steel Exhibit at the Paris Exposition of 1900 85

James Mapes Dodge 178

Wilfred Lewis I79

Robert Bender 190

Showing the height of the century-old box

The Old Garden Before Moving the Box 194

A Section of the Box Crated for Moving 194

A Crated Section of the Box En Transit 195

Near View of a Section of the Box after Moving 195

General View of the Box after Moving 196

A Vista in the Garden 197

Moving the Fifty- Year-Old Wistaria While in Bloom 198

Moving a Thirty-Foot White Pine 199

A Part of the Grass-Growing Laboratory 212

Buildjng Synthetic Soil in Obliquely Vertical Layers 213

The Putting Green at Boxly 218

Taylor's Highly Unique Putter 219

Mrs. Frederick W. Taylor 226

A Family Group at Boxly 227

Henry R. Towne 240

Henri Louis le Chatelier 241

Rear Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich 324

Major General William Crozier 325

Taylor Inspecting Concrete Work 396

BOOK V
THE GREAT ADVENTURE AT BETHLEHEM

The power of persistence, of enduring defeat and of gaining victory by defeats'
is one of these forces which never loses its charm. The power of a man increases
steadily by continuance in one direction. He becomes acquainted with the
resistances, and with his own tools; increases his skill and strength and learns
the favorable moments and favorable accidents. He is his own apprentice, and
more time gives a great addition of power, just as a falling body acquires mo-
mentum with every foot of the fall. How we prize a good continuer!

Emerson's Perpetual Forces

CHAPTER I

HIS CALL TO BETHLEHEM

IF one were asked to name the most remarkable community
in the United States, one surely would have to consider
the town of Bethlehem, situated on both banks o£ the
Lehigh River in Pennsylvania, fifty-seven miles by rail north
by west of Philadelphia/ Never a large community, it for
years has been celebrated equally for religion and steel, for
music and manufacturing j a combination that in recent times
has become largely personified in Charles M. Schwab, prin-
cipal patron of Bethlehem's famous Bach Choir and principal
owner of Bethlehem's famous steel works.

Its religious and musical celebrity Bethlehem owes to the
fact that it was founded (in 1741) by the Moravians, that
remarkable sect which, due to the teachings of John Huss,
sprang up in Bohemia and Moravia in the fifteenth century,
and when persecuted by the Hapsburgs, established itself in
the adjoining land of Saxony. Doubtless due to its Slavic
and South German origin, it early adopted a liturgy with such a
strong musical tendency that its followers naturally came to
praise the Lord with flutes, horns, violas, and trombones.
Thus as early as 17 80 Bethlehem had an orchestra, and it is
said to have been the first in America. Equally natural was
it that, with the removal of the main body of Moravians to
Saxony, their musical service should become dominated by the
compositions of that noble and scholarly soul, Johann Sebas-
tian Bach, so long an organist and director of music in churches

^ Though for many years it was divided politically into the boroughs of
Bethlehem, West Bethlehem, and South Bethlehem, it all along has been es-
sentially one community.

3

4 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

at Leipslc. Hence Bethlehem's famous Bach Choir and its
annual Bach festival.

At Bethlehem the Moravians still maintain a theological
seminary, colleges for men and women, and parochial schoools.
Here also, on a site overlooking South Bethlehem, is that
important non-sectarian institution, Lehigh University. And
between this Moravian and university influence, Bethlehem
could not well fail to offer the initiate some of the most de-
lightful society to be found anywhere.

,Yet also in and around Bethlehem one of the strangest
peoples to be found in America j namely, the Pennsylvania
Dutch. For that is what they call the main body of the
descendants of the Germans (not Hollanders) who emigrated
to Pennsylvania in our pre-Revolutionary days. Born here
for many generations, they have lost all attachment to Ger-
many, but never have become quite Americanized. In the
main, they have forgotten how to speak German, and never
have learned to speak English. As clannish as they are canny,
they have a speech all their own. Among them are un-
doubtedly many fine individuals j hardworking, saving,
orderly. But also among them typical penny-pinchers j nar-
row, bigoted, suspicious folkj dull as to wit and sluggish as to
mind J typical little brothers to the ox. And of such, we
shall see, was Schmidt^ Fred Taylor's world-famous pig-
iron handler, for whom the tender-hearted have so sorely
grieved, seeing that Taylor did not treat him in anything like
the fashion one would treat a delicate, poetic genius.

In Bethlehem also a mixture of races from all over the
earth. This, at any rate, in South Bethlehem. For here,
besides other manufacturing enterprises, are the steel works,
which, as the World War came to stimulate their business,
offered employment to more than 25,000 persons.

At this writing, the Bethlehem Steel Company is only one
of the many subsidiary companies of the Bethlehem Steel

HIS CALL TO BETHLEHEM 5

Corporation, which Charles M. Schwab organized in 1904,
with the object of linking up directly with the manufacture
of steel the shipbuilding companies in which he had become
interested. The old Bethlehem Steel Company, we are told,
had its origin about i860, when Augustus and Francis Wolle,
members of one of the old Moravian families, bought a farm
in South Bethlehem, and to develop this property established a
blast furnace. For many years their enterprise was called
the Bethlehem Iron Company j indeed, to be strictly accurate,
it was not until 1899, a year after Taylor went there, that
the iron in the company's name was changed to steel.

As the business developed, John Fritz, then of Johnstown,
was employed to lay out the buildings and design the ma-
chinery. This indeed was the John Fritz beloved of all
engineers, hailed throughout his latter years as the dean of
the American engineering fraternity, and intensely admired by
Taylor as probably the finest product of the old empirical
school. It was at Bethlehem that Fritz made his great contri-
bution to the development of the Bessemer process of steel
making, and he was general superintendent of these works so
long that it became difficult to separate his identity from that
of the company.

But now let us see what lay behind the letter written by
Davenport in November of 1897 to tell Taylor that Robert
P. Linderman, who then had become the president of the
company, wished to talk with him about introducing into the
machine shop a piece-work system.

Along about 1885, the Bethlehem Company decided to
reach out for a share of the big business that was promised at
this time by the development of a new navy under the enter-
prising administration of William C. Whitney. In 1886 it
entered into an arrangement with the English firm of Sir
Joseph Whitworth & Company, by which that company agreed
to supply machinery similar to that which it was using for

6 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

the manufacture of steel forgings. A contract also was made
with Schneider & Company, of Le Creuzot, France, by which
this latter company agreed to supply drawings of machinery
for making steel armor plate, as well as all the information
it possessed as to manufacturing methods and shop practice.
This done, the Bethlehem Company built a plant able to make
heavier forgings than could be produced at either of the for-
eign establishments.

In 1887 the company obtained from Secretary Whitney
contracts both for forgings for heavy cannon and for armor
plate. It was realized, however, that something needed to
be done to brace up the works management. Probably no one
realized this better than John Fritz. But he had ruled there
now for more than a quarter of a century, and it was getting
time for him to retire from all active work. Brilliant as had
been his work in the old days, the new days with their new
methods were calling for a younger man. The empirical
was passing, the scientific was coming.

As the works management problem at Bethlehem became
more pressing, eyes there were turned to Midvale. Not that
they wished to copy their rival's methods. Of course not.
But Midvale appeared to have an exceptionally good works
management, and it was thought it would be just as well to get
a Midvale man. So, in 1888, they reached out for Russell
W. Davenport.

It always was maintained by Davenport that he went to
Bethlehem with the distinct understanding that when John
Fritz retired as general superintendent, he was to succeed
him. As it turned out, however, a Mr. Owen F. Leibert
succeeded Fritz, while Davenport was conducted into the
office of second vice-president, and there quietly sidetracked
as far as the management of the works was concerned. At that
he found at Bethlehem a high sphere of usefulness. Un-
doubtedly the metallurgical work there was brought to a state

HIS CALL TO BETHLEHEM 7

of excellence, and we have the disinterested testimony of
government inspectors that the chief credit for this belonged
to Davenport. Nevertheless, this did not settle the works-
management problem, and along about 1897 it became acute.

By many it has been supposed that Davenport brought
Taylor to Bethlehem. The fact is, however, that Davenport
had no authority to take such a step. Although he approved
of it, he was not even the instigator. And the president,
Robert P. Linderman, on whose behalf Davenport wrote to
Taylor, was not the instigator either. The man primarily
responsible was that enterprising Philadelphian, Joseph
Wharton.

Up to the middle of the i88o's, the ownership of the
Bethlehem Company had been shared among such leading
local families as the Lindermans, the Sayres, and the Wilburs.
But when the plant was greatly enlarged to prepare it for
government work, outside capital had to be enlisted, and
thereupon Wharton stepped in, to play a quiet but none the
less leading and insistent part in the direction of its affairs.
Our information is that when the negotiations to bring Taylor
to Bethlehem began, Wharton owned one-quarter of the
company's stock, besides holding the majority of its bonds.

That the works management was backward at this time is
not astonishing in view of the existing general conditions.
Robert P. Linderman, the company's chief executive, was a
son of Dr. Garrett B. Linderman, at first a local physician and
then a coal operator and financier. And it was to finance that
Robert Linderman was brought up. It is to be assumed that
he served the financial end of the company's business with
ability, but it is certain that about the operation of the works
he knew practically nothing. Moreover, in those works
nepotism was rifej most of the important positions were filled
by men who had been put in them chiefly because of their
connection or " pull " with some one of the local families

8 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

among whom the ownership of the company had so long been
divided. This is not to say that there were not some able
men in the lot. There were. But if there was a man holding
an important position for which he was well qualified, it was
due more to accident than to design. And here we can find the
explanation of Davenport's being sidetracked. Worst of all
was the fact that no one man was directly responsible for the
operation of the works as a whole. As John Fritz had made
the ofiice of general superintendent, this office was concerned
almost exclusively with the design and erection of buildings
and machinery, and with the planning of developments. The
actual operation of the works in the living present was largely
left to the various heads of the departments, as armor plate,
forging, melting, tempering, and machine shop, and among
these departments there was little or no cooperation.

The negotiations with Taylor lasted off and on from No-
vember, 1897, throughout the following winter. To him the
prospect of going to Bethlehem was more than pleasing. Here
again he saw opening for him the door of a great opportunity.
The Bethlehem Company at this time had a nominal capital
of $5,000,000, while its value was placed at $15,000,000 or
more. Between five and six thousand men were then em-
ployed. From Davenport, however, Taylor gained an exten-
sive knowledge of the general conditions, and he had no
illusions as to the difficulties that there would confront him.
On January 4, 1898, he sent from Fitchburg the following
letter, marked personal:

My DEAR Davenport:

While I was in Philadelphia about ten days ago I stopped in to see
Jos. Wharton and find his views regarding piece work. He told me
that he had urged upon the Board of Directors several times during
the last five years the necessity of running the Bethlehem Steel Works
on piece work, and that he was very heartily in favor of same. When
I told him, however, that it involved paying from 33 to 50% higher

HIS CALL TO BETHLEHEM 9

wages in order to get out properly really hustling piece work he said at
first that this was out of the question. After talking with him for some
time, however, and explaining that men would not work extraordinarily
hard for ordinary wages he seemed convinced on this point. At any
rate he said he was heartily in favor of having piece work.

I suggested that you were as well qualified as anyone in the country
to introduce piece work and I took upon myself to recommend your
transfer to the head of the manufacturing department. He, however,
was absolutely non-committal on this point, neither acquiesced nor the
contrary.

As has been said, Joseph Wharton always will have the
distinction of being one of the first financiers in this country
to recognize the value in industry of the scientific expert. It
was due to his belief in experts that he was attracted to Taylor.
Yet when Taylor told him that the Bethlehem Company must
pay high wages, Wharton balked. This despite the fact that
in A Piece-Rate System^ it was stated, with all the emphasis
that italics can lend, that the whole object of the system was to
combine high wages with low labor costs. Verily to write is
one thing, and to get yourself understood is something else,
especially when you are dealing with persons who are not pre-
pared to understand you by anything in their education or ex-
perience. Taylor told Davenport that he talked with
Wharton for " some time." Well we can believe that It was
a characteristic Fred Taylor outpouring of high principle
mixed with sagacity, of imperiousness blended with persuasive-
ness} the whole lighted up with a wondrous enthusiasm.

It also will be seen from the foregoing letter that Taylor
was bent from the beginning on getting Davenport placed
at the head of the works. This, of course, was not just be-
cause Davenport was his old friend. It was because he wanted
to have the backing of a man who, having had a scientific
training, would understand his general methods.

Now, it may occur to the reader that there was something

10 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

irregular in the way Taylor dealt with Wharton, a director,
over the head of Linderman, the president. Certainly there
was nothing underhanded about itj Linderman's letters to
Taylor show that he was fully aware that Taylor was having
talks with Wharton. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that it
contravened one of the first principles of organization. There
was, as a matter of fact, something false about the whole
situation at Bethlehem during Taylor's association with the
company, and this will go far to explain the trouble that
developed. Nominally Taylor was employed by Linderman.
Actually he was employed by Wharton. It was Wharton who
held him responsible for results. It was from Linderman he
had to demand the authority necessary for the discharge of his
responsibility. The falseness of this situation was not created
by him; it was of a piece with the irregularity of things in
general at Bethlehem beginning with the fact that Linderman,
though supposed to be responsible for the works, knew next
to nothing about manufacturing j and hardly could Taylor be
blamed for meeting this situation as best he could.

There can be no possible doubt that from the start he did
his level best to enlighten Linderman as to what he proposed
to do, how he proposed to do it, and what probably would
be the consequences. Before us is a letter which proves this.
Incidentally it will afford some insight into the heartbreaking
opposition he had encountered in the past and was again pre-
pared to encounter:

Hotel Vendome, Boston, Mass., Jan. 19, 1898
Mr. Rob't p. Linderman, Pres.y
Bethlehem Iron Co.,
So. Bethlehem, Pa.
Deiar Sir:

I have yours of Jan 6th asking me to go into further particulars re-
garding the methods which I would propose adopting for the intro-
duction of Piece Work in your machine shop.

HIS CALL TO BETHLEHEM ii

I find it difficult, however, to explain very much about the subject
vv^ithout writing more than you would care to read. The chief objects
which I have in view in systematizing the shop are:

First: — ,To render the management of the shop entirely independ-
ent of any one man or any set of men so that the shop will be in a
position to run practically as economically if you were to lose your
foreman, or if, in fact, a considerable body of your workmen were
to leave at any one time.

Second: — To introduce such system and discipline into the shop
that any policy which may be decided upon by the management can be
properly carried out.

Third: — To introduce the best kind of Piece Work in place of
Day Work and thus stop the loafing which takes place under all
Day Work and also to very materially increase the rate of speed and
the accuracy of each man in the shop.

Before any move can be made toward actively introducing Piece
Work many of the details connected with running the machines and
the management of the work in the shop which are usually left to the
individual judgment of the workmen must be standardized and taken
entirely out of their control; such items for instance as the dressing
and grinding of all the small cutting tools in the shop and the storing
of all these tools in a suitable tool room from which they are issued
under the check system to the men.

An illustration of a particular case may perhaps more fully explain
my meaning in this regard. If, in the ordinary machine shop, a fore-
man were to order any one of his men to do a certain job on Piece
Work and attempted to tell the man what cutting speed and feed to
use the result would be in nine cases out of ten that the man would
grind his tools so that they could not do the work. If the foreman were
then to put another man onto the machine he would probably find that
the first man had either hidden many of his best tools belonging to the
lathe or transferred them to some friend in the shop, so that the new
man coming onto the machine would have to spend perhaps two or three
days in getting tools dressed and ground before he could start to do
the work, and even then unless he were skilled in the art of designing
machine shop tools, which not one machinist in a thousand is, he would

12 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

probably have tools made that would fail to do the work economically
on this particular machine.

It is just such obstacles as this that prevent the introduction of
Piece Work in most shops. The first step therefore taward intro-
ducing Piece Work lies in a careful study of all the trifling details
of the shop and a thorough systematizing of this part of the
establishment.

When the endeavor is made to instruct each workman as to
the best method to be pursued in doing his work instead of leaving
it to each individual's judgment it is absolutely necessary that all
orders should be written instead of verbal, otherwise the responsi-
bility for an error cannot be properly located. Therefore the
whole method of putting orders into the shop and for inspection
and payment for the work, and of making up your labor returns,
must be overhauled and improved before Piece Work can be in-
troduced. After reforms similar to the above have been introduced
in the shop it is then possible to introduce Piece Work.

I am very much in favor of the differential rate system of Piece
Work which is in use in the Midvale Steel Works and several other
works in the country, and in order that you may understand this
system I send you under separate cover several copies of a paper
read before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers describing
this system.

Any move toward accomplishing the above ends will undoubt-
edly be strenuously opposed by the workmen in your shop, and
probably also by most of your foremen and superintendents. It
seems to be therefore that the following conditions are indispensable
to success.

First: — That the man whom you wish me to train to run your shop
on Piece Work must be loyal to the Piece Work system, a competent
man, and not subject to the influence or control of anyone who is
opposed to Piece Work.

Second : — This man must have the power to discharge any
man in the shop and any workman discharged by him should not
again be employed in any part of your Works without the written
consent of the man who discharged him.

HIS CALL TO BETHLEHEM 13

Third : — In selecting men for promotion only one thing should
be considered, namely, the fitness of the man, and the question
of whose friend a man may be or what influence he' has should
carry absolutely no weight.

Fourth: — If you are content with stopping the loafing which
goes on in every " Day-Work " shop and in increasing the output
by having better shaped cutting tools than are generally used, and
by an improved system for caring for the small details of the shop,
it will not be necessary to pay your workmen any higher wages on
Piece Work than they are now paid on Day Work. If, however,
you expect your workmen to work very much harder than they do
on Day Work (and my experience is that the greatest gain is to be
made by increasing the pace of all your men) then you must
recognize the fact that workmen will not double their rate of speed
for the same wages for which they* will work by the day. My
experience is that it is necessary to pay them on Piece Work from
25 to 50 per cent more than they get on Day Work in order to
stimulate them to their maximum.

I do not think that Piece Work can possibly be introduced in your
shop under from nine months to two years. The time will of
course very greatly depend upon the tractability of your men and
upon the energy of the foreman and assistants who are at work
in introducing the system.

I am afraid that the above very inadequately describes the neces-
sary conditions. By referring to the pamphlet which I send you,
however, you will I think be able to form a better judgment. If
you wish it I shall be glad to come to Bethlehem and spend a day
with you or any of your Directors in talking the matter over and
answering such questions as may occur to you, and it seems to me
that this might possibly be more satisfactory to you.

My terms are $35.00 per day, with my living expenses added.
These generally amount to about $5.00 per day. If I have to do any
traveling for the Company my traveling expenses should also be paid.

Very truly yours,

Fred W. Taylor

14 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

All the subsequent happenings show that this letter, though
written in the plainest of English, was to Robert P. Linder-
man as so much Choctaw. The mental attitude and viewpoint
of the engineer was to him terra incognita. In fact, justice
to him requires us to recognize that those whose training has
been confined to finance are extremely likely to go through
life with the fixed idea that anything desirable can be bought
with money i that if you hand out the money, the rest should
follow automatically, and your whole duty has been dis-
charged.

The evidence is that, after negotiating with Taylor, Lin-
derman was sure only of these things: that something needed
to be done to speed up the works j that this man Taylor, hav-
ing the backing of Joseph Wharton, was probably the one to
do itj and that the Bethlehem Company should pay him his
price, high though it seemed to be.

On the other hand, it is plain that Taylor, with spirit soar-
ing triumphantly above all his setbacks, was indomitably re-
solved on getting the Bethlehem Company to accept his
methods complete, and that when it finally was settled that
he should begin his work in May, 1898, he prepared himself
for the struggle of his career.

CHAPTER II

THE OPPOSING GROUPS

ANTICIPATING a long stay in this community, he
and his wife rented a house pleasantly situated in
the hill section of South Bethlehem. For the first
time in many years they were able to take their household
things out of storage, and establish a real home. Just
previous to their arrival in Bethlehem, they had spent several
days at Lakewood, the resort in the New Jersey pine country.
There Mr. Taylor had a good deal of golf. From Bethlehem
he frequently returned to the Lakewood links, and we believe
that among the persons he used to meet on those links was that
distinguished joker, Harrah of Midvale. In Bethlehem he
continued to use the bicycle he had taken to riding in Fitch-
burg 5 at all events, it was his custom to use it in journeying
to and fro between his home and the steel works.

Here he had particular reason to believe that mill people
are able to scent the approach of a reformer from afar. No
sooner did he arrive in town than the excitement began, and
it was by no means confined to the steel works. Such a leading
part did those works play in the life of the community that
the local newspapers were concerned with every move made
there. They reflected the fear even of plain Bill Smith that
he might be separated from his job. Presently the community
in general was gaping at the unheard-of doings of the new-
comer. He acquired among these Bethlehemites the sobriquet
of " Speedy " Taylor. It was not merely that some thought
him a crank. It was wondered whether he was an entirely
respectable person. It was feared that, among other things,

IS

1 6 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

as we shall presently see, he would disturb real-estate values.

His state of mind at this time is indicated by his talks
to the young men whom he gathered about him at the works.
" Keep out of trouble as long as you possibly can," he would
say J " but make the other fellow realize that if he is bent on
forcing it on you, he will have his hands fullj and be ready
to get in the first blow." If the people at the works had
scented his approach from afar, he, now getting to be an old
war-horse, had himself snifFed the battle afar off. Speaking
with entire seriousness, you hardly could say that he arrived
looking for trouble. But he did go to Bethlehem expecting
it J and if that was inevitable, it was none the less unfortunate,
especially in the case of one with his intensity of temperament.

That he really was bent on avoiding trouble, that he had
no desire to jam in his methods or ram them down people's
throats — this is evidenced by the written reports and recom-
mendations that he, throughout 1898 and 1899, kept present-
ing to Mr. Linderman. He endeavored with infinite pains to
keep that gentleman informed as to every phase of his workj
as to what had been done, and why, and what should be done,
and why. It was his purpose to take no step involving a
definite change in policy without getting Linderman or the
directors to commit himself or themselves to it. For the
benefit of the officers of the works, he for a long time gave
talks in the luncheon room at noon, in explanation of his
methods and their purpose.

On May 27, 1898, the day he formally began his work,
he addressed to Linderman his "Recommendation No. i.
Subject: Desirability of establishing standards throughout the
works." What he referred to was " such details, for example,
as the care of the belting, the shapes of the cutting tools,
and the method of dressing, tempering, grinding, storing and
issuing the same, the quality of the tool steel from which they
are made, and the quantity to be kept on handj the speeds

THE OPPOSING GROUPS 17

and feeds used on the machine tools, etc., etc." And he went
on to say:

Any attempt toward the adoption of standards of this kind will
meet with great opposition, the chief ground of which is based on the
supposition that uniform conditions of this sort discourage originality
and individual improvement among the men. If this system of
standards, however, is properly applied it produces quite the opposite
effect, since each workman then understands that if he succeeds in
making any improvement that such improvement may be adopted
as the work's standard, and his credit for same be far greater than
would be the case under the other system.

In view of the above, it seems to the writer of great importance,
1st. To determine whether you wish to adopt a series of standards

for the small details throughout your works.
2nd. If you decide in the affirmative, to convince your leading

assistants in the works of the desirability of standards.
3rd. To determine upon the best method of establishing these
standards and enforcing their adoption and maintenance
throughout the works.

Yes, Linderman allowed that such standards should be
established. But who was going to do the work of convincing
his "leading assistants" of this desirability? Aye, there was
the rub. Not a soul there was who actually was responsible
for the works as a whole. So Taylor talked with Linderman
about this and was told by him to investigate and report.
And about a month later he did report, and that elaborately j
and it was a fine example of how discreet, diplomatic, and
tactful he could be when he considered it necessary. There was
recognition of the " superior quality " of the company's
product. There was judicious praise of the " good workmen
and competent heads of the departments." But Linderman
was told that there was an " almost entire absence of a high
order of cooperation throughout your [his] A^orks, not only
among the workmen in your [his] departments, but among

1 8 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

the departments themselves." So Taylor proposed that there
should be established a " new office or position, namely, that
of Superintendent of Manufacture." And he continued:

The duty of this officer, as his title indicates, should be to have
charge of the manufacturing throughout the works. The heads of
all the departments should receive their orders from him and should
report to him; and no one, high or low, should have authority to
give orders to them, or any of their men, or to receive reports from
them, except through this superintendent. Under his supervision
should be the piece work rate fixing, the wages of the workmen in
the manufacturing departments, the direction of the laying out of
the departments, the estimate of the cost of new work, and the making
of promises for dates of delivery, together with the cost keeping. He
and his assistants, clerks, etc., should be located in the center of the
manufacturing departments, and he should have no duties which
would take him away from these departments, so that he may be
available at all times to your heads of departments for consultation.
He should have nothing whatever to do with the work of your Gen-
eral Superintendent, i.e., with the design and erection of new machin-
ery or buildings, or the inauguration of new methods or processes.

Of course Taylor needed to have Davenport placed in this
position. But here he was particularly diplomatic j his report
showing that in this connection he canvassed every official in
the works. The general superintendent, Owen F. Leibert,
and the assistant general superintendent, Robert H. Sayre, Jr.,
were " emphatic in their opinion that Mr. Davenport was
entirely unfitted for the position." As a matter of fact, these
gentlemen thought that the works should have not one head
but three! However, Taylor got every superintendent of an
operating department, as well as the engineer in charge of
construction, to indorse Davenport. And the outcome of his
report was that the position of superintendent of manufactur-
ing was duly created, and Davenport installed in it.

THE OPPOSING GROUPS 19

As for Taylor's recommendation that the superintendent of
manufacture " and his assistants, clerks, etc., should be located
in the centre of the manufacturing departments," this quota-
tion from Shop Management ^ will indicate what followed
from it:

The large machine shop of the Bethlehem Steel Company was more
than a quarter of a mile long, and this was successfully run from a
single planning room situated close to it. The manager, superin-
tendent, and their assistants should, of course, have their offices ad-
jacent to the planning room and, if practicable, the drafting room
should be near at hand, thus bringing all of the planning and purely
brain work of the establishment close together. The advantages of
this concentration were found to be so great at Bethlehem that the
general offices of the company, which were formerly located in the
business part of the town, about a mile and a half away, were moved
into the middle of the works adjacent to the planning room.

All along he had been moving unconsciously — that is,
wholly in natural response to the conditions he met with — in
the direction of functional foremanship and its full develop-
ment, the planning department, and here at Bethlehem he
became fully conscious of this thing as a definite principle.
At first he held it tentatively. But the further he progressed
with his work at Bethlehem, the more he came to believe in
it, until at length he accepted it fully.

He was brought to Bethlehem mainly to speed up the
machine shop, more particularly the big one, which was known
as No. 2. It was this machine shop which had been the neck
of the bottle in limiting the output of the establishment.
While he remained at Bethlehem, his personal activities
mostly were confined to this shop. However, he in person
also directed the systemizing of the yard labor, and set out
to improve the company's accounting system. Through

1 p. no.

20 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Davenport his methods were more or less introduced into
the other departments of the works.

In the machine shop he at once was confronted with that
question he had been compelled to leave unsettled at Cramp's
— the question as to which make of self-hardening tool steel
then on the market was the best to adopt as standard. As he
again attempted to settle it, he was brought directly in contact
with a man whose name was destined to become associated with
his in international fame. This was J. Maunsel White, who,
also a graduate of Stevens Institute, had been for several years
in the employ of the Bethlehem Company as its metallurgical
engineer.

Hardly could Taylor have become associated with a man
whose personal habits and general outlook on life were in
greater contrast to his own. It was as if old New England
formed a partnership with old New Orleans, which, founded
by the French, still is far famed for its cooks and cookery.
Of New Orleans White was a native and true son. A bon
vivant and a connoisseur in both food and drink, he took life
easy, and over his glass loved to exercise his skill as a racon-
teur. Some of White's habits caused Taylor to shake his
head. But when he, Taylor, would get out the little bottle
of saccharin that he carried as a substitute for sugar, or more
particularly his bottle of lithia or other medicinal water, then
it would be White's turn. But White didn't shake his head.
He laughed. " If you, Taylor," he would say, " would think
a little more of what you eat, would put your mind on your
food and enjoy it, and take a little drink now and then, you
wouldn't have to fill up on that bellywash." And who can
doubt that, at least as regards the food, there was in what he
said more truth than poetry? Taylor was ascetic because of
the way his life's forces centred in his intellect.

Dissimilar in other respects, Taylor and White both were
scientific investigators of the most thorough type. It may

THE OPPOSING GROUPS 21

be said that of all the men who were of the Bethlehem Com-
pany when Taylor went there, White was the only one, be-
sides Davenport, who had any ability to appreciate what in
the industrial world Taylor stood for.

In the case of the operating chiefs it was not merely
that they were in general unfamiliar with scientific methods.
As they saw that these methods when applied to the manage-
ment would carefully prescribe the duties of each man high
and low, and place upon each a definite, clear-cut responsi-
bility, they were alarmed. The men who held their positions
mainly through pull had, of course, the best reasons to fear,
and it was perfectly natural that a threat to one should be
viewed as a threat to all. No man, in fact, could be sure
what effect upon himself the changes at which Taylor was
aiming would have.

Justice, however, requires us to point out that when some
of the bigger operating chiefs said later that they could have
stood Taylor^s methods if it had not been for Taylor himself,
they probably were sincere. He never had postponed his
victories over the hard and disagreeable. Thus he had put on
power. When he entered a place, you felt an addition.
When he left a place, you were conscious of a subtraction.
And you were likely to have great pleasure either in his coming
or his going. And it is not difficult to understand why many
men at Bethlehem preferred the back view of him to the
front. He must needs be conscious of his power, and he
manifested this consciousness in an insouciance which, if you
could not know what a modest man he was at bottom, you were
likely to find more trying than outright boasting. And there
is the fact that to expect men to oppose you is one of the
quickest ways to induce them to do so.

One of the first results of this general situation was that
when Taylor went to the operating chiefs to get them to
recommend men to assist Davenport and himself, they had no

22 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

recommendations to make. Thus in February, 1899, we find
Taylor reporting to Linderman:

Aside from the men who have been engaged in this experimental
work in your Smith Shop [that pertaining to the heat treatment of
tools], the writer has had great difficulty in getting suitable men to
assist in the introduction of piece work, and in the speeding up of
your tools. Out of the 3,500 men in your Works he has only suc-
ceeded in getting two, who are engaged in this work, all the others
having been brought in from outside your Works.

He added that it seemed unfortunate that more of the old
employees could not be trained in the systemizing work, since
the men who had this training must necessarily " occupy
very important positions in the works in the future." He
asked that at least fifteen or twenty competent men now be
taken from other work and assigned to the systemizing. But
these men never were forthcoming.

It is easy from all this to see how there arose in those
works two distinct groups: a small one made up of Taylor
men, and a big one composed of anti-Taylor men.

Among the first young men Taylor brought in was Dwight
V. Merrick. Becoming in later years a leading specialist in
time study as a part of Scientific Management, Merrick had
his earning power doubled and redoubled j and here was a
phenomenon exhibited by practically all the men who, be-
coming associated with Taylor, were willing to forego exercis-
ing their initiative until they learned what he had to teach
them. Two of the other young men Taylor brought to Beth-
lehem and for whom he had a high regard were David C.
Fenner and Sidney Newbold. The two old Bethlehem em-
ployees to whom Taylor referred as being the only ones he
could get out of the total force of 3,500 were James Kellogg
and Joseph Welden, and they also were among those of whom
in his later years he made special mention for their services.

THE OPPOSING GROUPS 23

Early in 1899 he again reached out for Henry L. Gantt,
and induced him to come to Bethlehem mainly to assist Daven-
port in introducing piece work. It must be considered un-
fortunate that there have been people who praised Gantt
at the expense of his former chief. The fact would appear
to be that such difference of temperament as there was between
Gantt and Taylor was creditable to each. If Taylor's slogan
was " no responsibility without authority," Gantt told you that
as a consulting engineer he wanted neither responsibility nor
authority J it was his method to have you come to him that
he simply might advise you what to do. It was Taylor's in-
stinct to say, " What ought we to have? " It was Gantt's
instinct to say, "What can we do with what we have? "
Taylor was thoroughgoing j Gantt did not wish to go any
farther than you were willing to have him. Taylor was pro-
found, revolutionary J Gantt adaptable, opportunist. It is true
that Taylor felt that Gantt never fully grasped the underlying
philosophy of Scientific Management, and that before Taylor's
death he and Gantt had largely got out of sympathy with each
other as regards various details pertaining to the practice of
their profession j but this does not alter the fact that each
continued to have for the other a lively regard and respect.
It is certain that at Bethlehem, as elsewhere, Gantt's ready
ability to make the best of whatever situation arose was of
great service in supplementing Taylor's bulldog ability to cling
to whatever he undertook until he got there or something
broke.

But now, at Bethlehem, Taylor again was confronted by the
problem of taking the metal-cutting laws he had discovered
and embodying them in a form so simple that these laws
could be practically taken advantage of by the every-day
working mechanic. This was the end to which all of his
metal-cutting investigations were directed. Until there had
been found some ready and practical means of determining

24 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

with accuracy the feed and speed question every time it arose
in a machine shop, it would be impossible to set for the
mechanic each day a scientifically-measured task, with detailed
written instructions and an exact time allowance.

It will be remembered that when Taylor and Gantt were at
Midvale, they devised a " crude sliding table " which, still
involving a resort to the slow method of " trial and error,"
yet represented an approximate solution of the problem. Soon
after Gantt's arrival in Bethlehem, they resumed work on this
problem. Between them they made slow progress, and then it
was that Taylor's old friend Wilfred Lewis suggested that
he enlist the services of Carl G. Barth, who, it will be recalled,
had been employed with Lewis at William Sellers & Company.
At this time, however, Barth could not be obtained, as he just
had taken a position as a teacher of mathematics and manual
training in the Ethical Culture School of New York City.
In his stead, Taylor employed S. L. Griswold Knox, then a
professor or instructor at Lehigh University. The result of
the collaboration among Taylor, Gantt, and Knox was what
Taylor in his metal-cutting paper called " an especially made
slide rule accompanied by diagrams, by means of which a still
more rapid solution of the problem was obtained." It pres-
ently proved that Taylor and Knox could not get along, and
Taylor was not satisfied with the " more rapid solution." He,
in fact, was in a quandary. Without a full or direct solution,
his efforts to put metal cutting on a strictly scientific basis
would fail, " except," as we are told, " for isolated cases in
which the cuts to be taken with a single feed and speed would
be so long that an appreciable time might be spent profitably
in predetermining the feed and speed." He intuitively felt
that a direct solution of some kind must be possible, and while
he still was brooding on this question there occurred the inci-
dent that led him to write under date of March 22, 1899, the
following letter:

THE OPPOSING GROUPS 25

Mr. Carl Barth,

54 Morningside Ave., New York.
My dear Mr. Barth:

Our mutual friend, Mr. Freeman, was here a few weeks since
and in the course of conversation told me that he understood from you
that the work you are now engaged in was not entirely satisfactory
in some respects.

An opportunity has come up at the Works here which, I am in-
clined to think, would offer very satisfactory work to you. Can you not
come over to Bethlehem in the near future and talk the matter over
with me? I want to let you see for yourself the exact nature of the
work which is involved, so that you may readily judge whether it
will be to your liking or not. To my mind, the position in question
offers very great opportunity.

CHAPTER III

BARTH DEVISES HIS SLIDE RULE

WRITING to General William Crozier in 1909,
Taylor referring to Carl Barth, said: "He is
one of the most brilliant minds I have ever met."
And in a letter addressed in 19 14 to Lionel S. Marks, pro-
fessor of mechanical engineering at Harvard, who had just
written an article on Scientific Management, Taylor said:
" In your text I do not think you give Mr. Carl G. Barth the
credit which belongs to him. He is certainly foremost among
those who are interested in and are installing scientific manage-
ment, and a more honest, straightforward and accomplished
man never lived."

His full name is Carl Georg Lange Barth. He was born
in Norway in i860, and thus was four years younger than
Taylor. His body is both short and slender. With his
glasses and close-cut beard, he has a severe, professorial look.
Norway is not a smiling land. But when Carl Barth gets
excited, as he does readily, and the lock of hair on an other-
wise bald forehead sticks up straight like the horn of a satyr,
then there is a look of devilish animation about the little
man that fully compensates for the absence of smiles.

How embarrassing it would be, it has been suggested, if the
faculty of telepathy were so developed in us that the inmost
mind of each would stand naked to all. Such a thing hardly
would embarrass Carl Barth. As it is now, whatever is in his
mind comes out. If it comes out in the manner of an enfant
terribley the embarrassment is all yours. His is the honesty
and fearlessness of the elements. For all his mathematical

26

BARTH DEVISES HIS SLIDE RULE 27

and mechanical genius, he is no narrow-minded specialist.
His mind sweeps the universe. He could become interested in
anything, if only he had the time. If you ask him to talk
about himself, he does. He is interested in himself because
he is interested in things in general. That what he says may
have an egotistical or conceited sound, concerns him not at
all. He presumes you want the facts. He is as free to tell
you what he thinks is to his discredit as what he thinks is to
his credit. The only thing is, he is not at all sure what, funda-
mentally, is to his credit or discredit.

He is proud to call himself a workman. As he told the
Industrial Relations Commission, about the only difference
he can see between himself and the workman he meets on the
street and in the cars is that he, apparently, has more time to
get clean than they have. " I don't care how dirty I get,"
he said, " but, my God! I want to get clean afterward." He
is a sublimated workman. And if it is one of the rewards
of work well done to invest the doer with a certain haughtiness,
he has that haughtiness in full. Some of the biggest business
men this country has produced have had the lesson taught
them that Carl Barth courts no one. When in his younger
and more frisky days he would walk into a shop to report on
what could be done to reorganize it on a Taylor basis, he had
no hesitation in letting it appear how forcibly he was struck by
the contrast between it and what he was used to. It was as if
he said: " My God! so this is what you call a machine shop! "
Hearing of this, Fred Taylor would beseech him not always to
find that everything was wrong — would beseech him to have
a little tact. Whereupon Carl Barth would experience all the
emotions of a pot called black by a kettle. What Homeric
laughter would pass all down the line of the Taylor following
at the bare mention of the word tact! And the spectacle of
Fred Taylor and Carl Barth locking horns over this issue —
that surely was the limit.

28 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

It is to be regretted that we cannot here reproduce any of
the charm lent to Mr. Earth's speech by his foreign accent.
What has been said, however, should prepare us for this bit
of candid autobiography taken from his testimony in 191 2
before the Special House Committee:

I received in my native country, Norway, what you in this country
consider a high-school education before I entered a small technical
school run under the auspices of the navy department, when I was only
fifteen and a half years old. I was the youngest pupil ever admitted.
It was only a short and purely theoretical course of a year and a half.
I graduated with higher honors than anybody ever had done before
in that school. It was a course that was absolutely stripped of the
numerous fool things with which we spoil technical education in this
country. . . .

After I graduated from this school I apprenticed myself in the
navy yard. After working about two years in the shops, for the
second time such pressure was brought to bear upon me to take an
instructorship in that technical school that I finally yielded, greatly
against my personal wishes, because I never spent two happier years
in my life than when working in those shops. I was an instructor
in mathematics for half of each day for one year in the technical
school and then was in the shop superintendent's office in the navy
yard for the other half of the day, after which I was prevailed upon
to give my whole time to the school, teaching mathematics in the
mornings and mechanical drawing in the afternoons, the following
year. However, in spite of receiving my superior's recognition of
my services as an instructor, the pay connected with the position was
so poor that while I could amply pay my board I could not fully
clothe myself, and for that reason I concluded to emigrate to this
country to try to get a job that would enable me to earn a complete
livelihood. . . .

Arriving in Philadelphia, he was led by a fellow countryman
in the employ of William Sellers & Company to call on that
firm with his school examination drawings, and by these Mr.
William Sellers was greatly impressed.

BARTH DEVISES HIS SLIDE RULE 29

As a consequence [said Barth] I was offered a place in the drawing
room of this company at $2 a day. This was more than I could
imagine myself worth, however, and I humbly suggested that they
better start me off at $1.50 only, until they actually found out what
I would be able to do for them; but, even so, I can assure you that
my first week's pay looked pretty big to me.

I got along very rapidly with William Sellers & Co., and my
efforts were well appreciated by little voluntary increases in my pay
from time to time until I reached $20 per week, after which I had
to make a fight for every additional cent of increase I received.

I had in the meantime married and gotten a family on my hands,
and as the demands on me became more pressing I was made to
realize more readily than I otherwise would have done that I was
getting more and more valuable to the company; and as this grew on
me I got my Dutch up from time to time and made demands for
wages more commensurate with my services.

I mention this to show you that I know what it is to have to fight
for one's rights.

After being with the Sellers Company for nearly fourteen
years, he left it in 1895, at which time he had become chief
designer. Continuing, he said:

I had several reasons for leaving William Sellers & Co. when I did.
In addition to working for them during the day I taught mechanical
drawing in the Franklin Institute evening schools for six years, and
gave private lessons in mathematics during the remaining evenings
of the week. After this I ran an evening school of my own for two
years, and through this work cultivated a desire some day to become
a professor in an engineering school in this country.

With this in view, I gave up further night work for money, and
set to work to utilize all my spare time to further improve my the-
oretical knowledge of engineering subjects.

I also contemplated leaving Sellers and going somewhere else where
I could get practical experience in other lines of engineering, so that
when I finally presented myself as a candidate for a professorship
I might be a strong one. My desire to become a professor came from

30 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

a natural tendency to instruct everybody less informed than myself,
and at Sellers' I was constantly helping the younger men along, a fact
much valued by the company.

Accordingly, when the hard times came on, and the company
wanted to cut everybody 20 per cent, including a countryman of mine
who had worked directly under me for two years, and who had de-
veloped to a point where he was worth far more than he was getting,
I protested that I thought the only fair thing to do would be first
to raise everybody that would have received an increase of pay in
normal times, before the proposed cuts were made. When this prop-
osition was turned down, my sense of justice was so provoked that
I made up my mind to leave the company as soon as my contract time,
which ran from year to year, was up, if in the meanwhile I could
find half a decent opportunity. . . .

The opportunity to leave came through a friend in St. Louis who
got me an ofi^er to go with an engine building concern there, at
$2,000 a year — a big come down, particularly as I had saved but
little of the $3,000 I had been getting for the past three years —
but as engine building was a new field for me, it was otherwise just
what I wanted.

He was with the St. Louis company until the business was
liquidated two years later. " While waiting for something
more suitable to turn up," he designed some special machinery
for the water commissioner of St. Louis. Three months later
he joined the staff of the Liternational Correspondence Schools
at Scranton, Pennsylvania. He remained there about a year
and a half, and then it was that he went to the Ethical Culture
School in New York to teach mathematics and manual training.

W^e imagine that until advancing years steadied and sobered
him, he was likely to amuse people who, as regards character
and intellect, stood in relation to him as pigmies to a giant.
Few were able to look beneath the surface of his foreign
speech and highly individual mannerisms j but one of these
evidently was Stuart E. Freeman, who, then a foreman in

CARL G. BARTH

BARTH DEVISES HIS SLIDE RULE 31

a machine shop, had been one of his pupils when, back in 1889,
he was conducting in Philadelphia his evening school of me-
chanical drawing. " It was my loyal, departed friend Free-
man," says Barth, " who first made me realize my possibilities,
and rescued me from ^ hiding my light forever under a bushel,'
as he used to put it." It was this Mr. Freeman who induced
Barth to leave the Sellers plant and take a position with the
St. Louis company, and it was he who in March, 1899, spoke
to Taylor about Barth, and so led Taylor to write to Barth
that month. Arranging at this time to take over the St.
Louis sales office of the Bethlehem Steel Company, Free-
man had seen Barth in New York a few days before, and had
learned from him that he was not entirely satisfied with his
position in the Ethical Culture School.

The upshot of the talk Barth had with Taylor was that in
June, 1899, he became an employee of the Bethlehem Com-
pany. It was agreed that he must begin at the beginning, and
thus make himself thoroughly familiar with the Taylor
method of testing tools and experimenting. So for about
three months he worked under Merrick as a laborer in helping
to run the experimental lathe.

Even as he worked at the lathe, he took in the general
situation. It was perfectly clear to him why Taylor, blazing
a trail of science through an industrial wilderness of rule-of-
thumb methods, and daily meeting the dull glass-eye of
failure to comprehend and the cold fish-eye of suspicion, had
to be so imperious. But even as he saw the need of the im-
periousness, he saw that it had some unfortunate results.
Taylor had ordered his subordinates to make so many experi-
ments a day. These must be made. And his subordinates,
fearing to fall short of the required number, were making
them. Men do not work at their best under the influence of
fear, and Barth was sure that many of the experiments were
incorrect or misleading. He knew that if he went to Taylor

32 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

with such a report he was likely to be classed as another of
those " damned kickers." If, despite this, he did go, we are
not to understand that it was courage that took him. What
might pass for courage with him, he says, is simply his consti-
tutional inability to sit quiet when he sees something being
done wrong. And if his expectation as to the manner of his
reception was fully realized, it was only the first of many
clashes between these two men who were about equally posi-
tive and intense.

Now, Gantt had plotted some experiments made to deter-
mine the relations among depth of cut, feed, and speed, while
all other variables were held constant. One day while he still
was helping to run the experimental lathe Barth happened to
see the plot on Gantt's desk, and was told by him that he
had tried in vain for about six weeks to construct a mathe-
matical formula to represent its curves. Unhesitatingly and
abruptly, Barth declared: " I'll eat my hat if I can't work
up an acceptable formula this evening and bring it in in the
morning."

He did not have to eat his hat. The fact was, he says,
that he at once recognized the curves drawn for the plot as
" capable of being more or less closely expressible mathe-
matically by a very simple equation." Now what was
Taylor's emotion? To borrow a saying of the Russian peas-
ants, he was as proud as a cock with five hens. He was as
proud as if the achievement had been his own. Nothing now
was too good for Barth. Immediately he was taken from the
lathe, and placed in charge of all the experimental work as
well as all the mathematical.

However, we must be careful, he says, not to think too
highly of his achievement. All along mathematical problems
had been his recreation. The more difiicult, the better. His
training had been good in the old country, to begin with. In
working out a theorem in geometry, for example, he had been

BARTH DEVISES HIS SLIDE RULE 33

taught to disregard the demonstration in the book until he
had tried it himself. If, after honest efForts many times re-
peated, he could not get started, he would consult the book
for the start, and if he got stuck at any other point, he would
use the book to help him on the journey to the demonstration.
But always he would try to work it out without any help,
and so had learned to use his own brains, to seek his own light.
" Here in this country," he says, " boys study mathematics
with their noses buried in the book, and it makes me sick."

When he was placed in charge of all the experimental and
mathematical work, he was told he must study everything that
had been done before. After spending about a week skimming
through the accumulated data, he became convinced that an
attempt to make himself thoroughly familiar with it would
only be a hindrance to him, and over this he and his chief had
a battle royal. To all of Taylor's insistence that he should
make that study he opposed a sturdy no. What had been
done before, said he, was simply a groping in the darkness.
He refused to follow other people's darkness. He would
seek his own light.

It has been brought out that, among them, Taylor, Gantt,
and Knox had developed what Taylor called " an especially
made slide rule accompanied by diagrams, by means of which
a still more rapid solution of the feed and speed problem was
obtained." As described by Barth, this instrument was "a
combination of a crude or embryonic logarithmic slide rule
and a set of tables incorporated on a common body. These
tables, in conjunction with the scales of the slide rule portion
of the instrument (which scales were not true logarithmic
scales, but merely scales of equidistant graduation of which
each mark denoted a 10 per cent higher value of the respective
variables represented than the mark denoting the next lower
value of a variable) embodied all the up-to-then experimen-
tally obtained knowledge of the relations between depth of

34 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

cut, feed, speed and life of tool for a certain size and shape
of tool . . . together with the several power combinations of
the particular lathe for which a particular instrument was
specially made up."^

At this time Barth " knew no more about logarithmic slide
rules than the average engineer who uses an ordinary straight
Mannheim slide rule or a Sexton omnimeter." He now made
an " independent study " of the Mannheim and Sexton instru-
ments, and this enabled him to construct " true logarithmic
scales of any size, both straight and circular." The result was
an " instrument that was a real logarithmic slide rule in cir-
cular form, patterned after the Sexton omnimeter." By Gantt
this instrument was facetiously dubbed " Earth's merry-go-
round," and Taylor himself was doubtful whether it was an
improvement on the Gantt-Knox instrument. Barth was sure
it was, but had to admit that " it at best furnished only a
somewhat quicker and, at times, more correct cut-and-try solu-
tion." The criticisms to which it was subjected spurred him
on to renewed efforts, and these " soon resulted in the con-
struction of a straight slide rule that gave a direct and almost
instantaneous solution of the problem."

On this " final rule the scales were so constructed and
arranged relatively to each other that the proper feed and
speed combination was at once revealed to the eye." Each
of the previous instruments was " in reality two independent
slide rules incorporated on a common body, the one dealing
with the power of the machine, the other with the efficiency
of the tool." The new instrument " so arranged these two
rules relatively to each other as to form one single rule, with a
power section and a tool section on either side of a common
double-edged feed scale." ^

^ This and the statements quoted in the following paragraph are from
Earth's Supplement to Frederick W. Taylor's " On the Art of Cutting Metals ; "
Article I, Industrial Management, September, 19 19.

^ Mr. Barth holds that these things show that the slide rule he finally de-

BARTH DEVISES HIS SLIDE RULE 35

Here, then, was the " full and direct " solution for which
Taylor so long had been seeking. It was the mathematical
genius of Barth that finally worked it out. But while we
pay tribute to this genius, let us not forget that all along the
inspiration was furnished by Taylor's own intuition that such
a solution could be found, even while the motive power all
along was furnished by Taylor's indefatigable purpose that
such a solution must be found.

A magic instrument, that slide rule. By it the most compli-
cated mathematical problems are solved in a minute. An
abolisher of guess work, opinions, arguments, debates. A
determiner of the law! To be sure, you here again can split
hairs, if you want to. You can say that, whereas pure or
abstract mathematics are inherent in the mind, a mathematical
formula can express a natural law only approximately j that is,
within the variations of the field where the law is applied.
But the best we can hope for, in the case of any law, is that
the expression be as exact as need be in the light of practical
requirements, and it is such an expression as this that is in-
sured by that slide rule.^

It was early in December, 1899, less than six months after
Barth went to Bethlehem, that his final slide rule was put into
practical use in the machine shop. However, we must for the
time being turn our attention from this shop to what Taylor
did at Bethlehem in the way of systemizing the yard labor j
and it will be seen that here again he was admirably served

vised was not simply an improvement on its predecessor, the Gantt-Knox
instrument, but was different in principle. This his present slide rule, he
says, " marks a quite natural but nevertheless decided and important advance
in the art of slide rule construction in general, and which as such has no con-
nection with the laws of cutting metals any more than with innumerable other
involved problems that may be solved by slide rules of similar construction."

^ In his later years Taylor had immense difficulty in getting himself under-
stood as to what he meant by law. Most people, apparently, could not get
beyond the idea that law is something which you make and usually make to
suit yourself. The conception of law as something which one discovers and
copies to the best of one's ability must, it would seem, remain as caviare to
the general.

36 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

by Earth's mathematical genius. Knowing that the systemiz-
ing of the yard labor would involve no standardization of
complicated surrounding conditions, he early took up this work
in the hope that in a comparatively short time it would afford
an object lesson to every one at Bethlehem of the value of
scientific methods in general. Because of the unforeseeable
and highly special difficulties he encountered, this hope was
not realized 3 nevertheless, he ultimately achieved things of
more than ordinary importance and interest.

CHAPTER IV

SYSTEMIZING SCHMIDT AND HIS FELLOWS

HERE is his own statement of what he found in the yard:

Up to the spring of 1899 all of the materials in the yard of
the Bethlehem Steel Company had been handled by gangs of
men working by the day, and under the foremanship of men who had
themselves formerly worked at similar work as laborers. Their man-
agement was about as good as the average of similar work, although it
was bad; all of the men being paid the ruling wages of laborers in
this section of the country, namely, $1.15 per day, the only means
of encouraging or disciplining them being either talking to them or
discharging them; occasionally, however, a man was selected from
among these men and given a better class of work with slightly higher
wages in some of the company's shops, and this had the effect of
slightly stimulating them. From four to six hundred men were em-
ployed in this class of work throughout the year.

The work of these men consisted mainly of unloading from rail-
way cars and shoveling on to piles, and from these piles again load-
ing as required, the raw materials used in running three blast furnaces
and seven large open-hearth furnaces, such as ore of various kinds,
varying from fine, gravelly ore to that which comes in large lumps,
coke, limestone, special pig, sand, etc., unloading hard and soft coal
for boilers, gas-producers, etc., and also for storage, and again loading
the stored coal as required for use, loading the pig-iron produced at the
furnaces for shipment, for storage, and for local use, and handling
billets, etc., produced by the rolling mills. The work covered a large
variety as laboring work goes, and it was not usual to keep a man
continuously at the same class of work.

Before undertaking the management of these men, the writer was
informed that they were steady workers, but slow and phlegmatic,
and that nothing would induce them to work fast.'-
■'• Skop Management, p. 47
37

38 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

The first of this yard labor which Taylor picked out to
systemize was that of the pig-iron handlers. There was a
special call at this time at Bethlehem for the work of these
men. Prices for pig iron had been so low that 80,000 tons
of it had been stored in small piles in an open field adjoining
the works. With the opening of the Spanish war, however, the
price of pig iron rose, and this large accumulation was sold.
In the gang of pig-iron handlers were about seventy-five
men. " A railroad switch was run out into the field right
along the edge of the piles of pig iron. An inclined plank
was placed against the side of a car, and each man picked up
from his pile a pig of iron weighing about 92 pounds, walked
up the inclined plank and dropped it on the end of the car." ^

Later on, in his papers and over and over again in his in-
formal talks at Boxly and on the platform throughout the
country, Taylor used what he accomplished with these pig-
iron handlers as an illustration of the value of scientific
methods. It was the lowest and cheapest form of labor. The
only thing in the nature of a tool used by these men was the
pair of wide leather straps that protected their hands. A man
reached down, picked up a pig, carried it up to the car, and
there placed or dropped it. There was not even a throw.
Nothing could be more elementary. Therefore Taylor con-
sidered that if he could show that pig-iron handling could
be reduced to a science to the mutual profit of man and man-
agement, no one could doubt the applicability of the scientific
method to any form of labor. This illustration, morever, was
so simple as to be well within the comprehension of the mass.
However, he used this illustration so often, and it excited such
interest and discussion, that many persons apparently got the
idea that pig-iron handling was about all there was to Scientific
Management.

The chief credit for carrying out the systemizing of all

^ The Principles of Scientific Management, p. 42.

SYSTEMIZING SCHMIDT 39

this yard labor he gave to A. B. Wadleigh, a college-educated
man who had had experience in managing worl^men. After
Taylor had taught Wadleigh the art of taking time observa-
tions with a stop watch, two other young college men, James
Gillespie and H. C. Wolle, also were employed on this work.

It was easy, of course, to divide the work of the pig-
iron handlers into its elements. These were (i) picking
up the pig from the ground or pile, (2) walking with it on
a level, (3) walking with it up an incline to the car, (4) drop-
ping the pig or laying it on a pile, (5) walking back empty
to get a load. The difficulty was that the elements represented
by picking up the pig and dropping it were so small in time
that it was impossible to obtain accurate readings of them on
the watch. You may think this was an insignificant matter.
Not so Taylor. That problem had to be solved, and Barth
was put to work on it. What Barth discovered was that where
work consists of recurring cycles of elementary operations,
or where a series of these operations is repeated over and over
again, it is possible to take sets of observations on two or more
of the successive elementary operations which occur in regular
order, and from the times thus obtained, calculate the time of
each element j that is, determine by algebraic equations the
value of each.

But Taylor soon was confronted by another and far more
difficult problem in connection with the work of those pig-
iron handlers. If in his day it hardly was possible to over-
work a man in a machine shop, there was a very serious
possibility of overworking laborers handling 92-pound pigs
of iron. What percentage of their time would these men
need for rest?

It will be remembered that when he was at Midvale, he set
out to discover " some rule, or law, which would enable a
foreman to know in advance how much of any kind of heavy
laboring work a man who was well suited to his job ought to

40 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

do in a day," but that while his Midvale experiments "re-
sulted in obtaining valuable information," he did not there
succeed in developing a law. From a stenographic report of
one of the informal, rapid-fire talks he gave at Boxly, we
quote this:

Finally at Bethlehem we made a very elaborate series of experi-
ments, and figured it out, and reduced it there to such absolutely
certain information that every doubtful question was eliminated.
Then we were able to say positively and without question that there is
no relation between horse power or man power and a day's work.
There is no traceable relation between foot pounds of energy as
measured by steam energy, or horse power, or anything else. That
is an extraordinary statement, but we proved that beyond a doubt.

By that time we had spent, I suppose, altogether pretty well on to
a year's work for one man, trying to find out what was at the bottom
of the art of labor, so as to be able to predict ahead on any kind of
a job of labor what a day's work was. It is very important to do that
when the task idea is up to you. It was necessary for us to do it.
When I went to Bethlehem, after making the first failure there, we
spent, I suppose, three months on that work there, and proved beyond
a doubt that there was nothing in it. Then all my friends wanted me
to give it up. Gantt, who was working with me, Gillespie, and three
or four others wanted me to give that up, but I was sure that the thing
was there, that there was some law.

Here, then, was another problem that was turned over to
Barth after he had begun his slide-rule work, and again he and
his chief had a little clash. To Barth it was amusing that
anyone should have attempted to get a horse-power measure
for work done in walking under load, since his study in
thermo-dynamics long since had made him acquainted with
the fact that " in walking on a level with a load, one does no
* external ' work, but only the * internal ' work that shows up
in heat." He did not attempt to conceal his amusement j
furthermore, he doubted whether anything useful could come

SYSTEMIZING SCHMIDT 41

from attempting to develop a law in this connection, and his
slide-rule work then was engaging him quite profitably. But
his chief insisted, and he tells us it was a suggestion that
Taylor made after he, Barth, had been at work on this problem
for some time that started him in the direction that brought
results. Taylor's formal description of what finally was
developed by Barth follows:

The law is confined to that class of work in which the limit of a
man's capacity is reached because he is tired out. It is the law of
heavy laboring, corresponding to the work of the cart horse, rather
than that of the trotter. Practically all such work consists of a heavy
pull or push on the man's arms, that is, the man's strength is exerted
by either lifting or pushing something which he grasps in his hands.
And the law is that for each given pull or push on the man's arms
it is possible for the workmen to be under load for only a definite
percentage of the day. For example, when pig iron is being handled
(each pig weighing 92 pounds), a first-class workman can only
be under load 43 per cent, of the day. He must be entirely free
from load during 57 per cent, of the day. And as the load be-
comes lighter, the percentage of the day under which the man can
remain under load increases. So that, if the workman is handling
a half-pig, weighing 46 pounds, he can then be under load 58 per
cent, of the day, and only has to rest during 42 per cent. As the
weight grows lighter the man can remain under load during a
larger and larger percentage of the day, until finally a load is reached
which he can carry in his hands all day long without being tired out.
When that point has been arrived at this law ceases to be useful as
a guide to a laborer's endurance, and some other law must be found
which indicates the man's capacity for work.

When a laborer is carrying a piece of pig iron weighing 92 pounds
in his hands, it tires him about as much to stand still under the load
as it does to walk with it, since his arm muscles are under the same
severe tension whether he is moving or not. A man, however, who
stands still under a load is exerting no horse-power whatever, and
this accounts for the fact that no constant relation could be traced

42 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

in various kinds of heavy laboring work between the foot-pounds of
energy exerted and the tiring effect of the work on the man. It will
also be clear that in all work of this kind it is necessary for the arms
of the workman to be completely free from load (that is, for the
workman to rest at frequent intervals). Throughout the time that
a man is under a heavy load the tissues of his arm muscles are in
process of degeneration, and frequent periods of rest are required in
order that the blood may have a chance to restore those tissues to their
normal condition.^

Before Taylor undertook to systemize the work of those
pig-iron handlers, they had been loading on the cars an aver-
age of about twelve and a half tons per man per day. When
he had prepared all his time-study data, including that
yielded by the law of heavy laboring, he was astonished to
find that a first-class pig-iron handler ought to load between
forty-seven and forty-eight tons a day, or just about four
times the quantity. " This task," he said, " seemed to us
so very large that we were obliged to go over our work
several times before we were absolutely sure that we were
right."

Once sure he was right, he set for the work a piece rate that
would enable the pig-iron handler, when he accomplished his
task, to earn 60 per cent more than he had been receiving, or
would raise his pay from $1.15 a day, which was the standard
rate in that locality for work of that grade, to $1.85. In
fixing upon this increase, Taylor was governed by what pre-
vious experience had taught him was necessary to make a man
contented to do his best at that heavy kind of work and still
would not afford him such a sudden increase of prosperity
as would incline him to work less steadily day in and day out.

His next step was the scientific selection of men for the
task of handling forty-seven tons of pig iron a day. After
the old gang of seventy-five men had been watched for

^ The Princ'tfUs of Scientific Mana^e7nent, p. 57.

SYSTEMIZING SCHMIDT 43

several days, four were picked out. And now we come to the
famous Mr. Schmidt (not his real name, of course):

A careful study then was made of each of these four men. We
looked up their history as far back as practicable and thorough in-
quiries were made as to the character, habits, and the ambition of each
of them. Finally we selected one from among the four as the most
likely man to start with. He was a little Pennsylvania Dutchman
who had been observed to trot back home for a mile or so after his
work in the evening, about as fresh as when he came trotting down to
work in the morning. We found that upon wages of $1.15 a day
he had succeeded in buying a small plot of ground, and that he was
engaged in putting up the walls of a little house for himself in the
morning before starting to work and at night after leaving. He
also had the reputation of being exceedingly " close," that is, of placing
a very high value on a dollar. As one man whom we talked to about
him said, " A penny looks about the size of a cart-wheel to him."
This man we will call Schmidt.^

In Taylor's dialogue with Schmidt we see his ability to
adapt his talk to the mentality of his man:

The task before us, then, narrowed itself down to getting Schmidt
to handle 47 tons of pig iron per day and making him glad to do it.
This was done as follows. Schmidt was called out from among the
gang of pig-iron handlers and talked to somewhat this way:

" Schmidt, are you a high-priced man ? "

"Veil, I don't know vat you mean? "

" Oh yes, you do. What I want to know is whether you are a
high-priced man or not."

" Veil, I don't know vat you mean."

" Oh, come now, you answer my questions. What I want to find
out is whether you are a high-priced man or one of these cheap fellows
here. What I want to find out is whether you want to earn $1.85 a
day or whether you are satisfied with $1.15, just the same as all those
cheap fellows are getting."

^ The Princifles of Scientific Management, beginning on p. 43.

44 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

"Did I vant $1.85 a day? Vas dot a high-priced man? Veil,
yes, I vas a high-priced man."

" Oh, you're aggravating me. Of course you w^ant $1.85 a day —
everyone vi'ants it. You know perfectly vv^ell that has very little to
do vi^ith your being a high-priced man. For goodness' sake answer my
question, and don't waste any more of my time. Now come over
here. You see that pile of pig iron? "

" Yes."

" You see that car? "

" Yes."

" Well, if you are a high-priced man, you will load that pig iron
on that car to-morrow for $1.85. Now do wake up and answer my
question. Tell me whether you are a high-priced man or not."

"Veil — did I got $1.85 for loading dot pig iron on dot car
to-morrow? "

" Yes, of course you do, and you get $1.85 for loading a pile like
that every day right through the year. That is what a high-priced
man does, and you know it just as well as I do."

" Veil, dot's all right. I could load dot pig iron on the car to-
morrow for $1.85, and I get it every day, don't I? "

" Certainly you do — certainly you do."

" Veil, den, I vas a high-priced man."

" Now, hold on, hold on. You know just as well as I do that a
high-priced man has to do exactly as he's told from morning till
night. You have seen this man here before, haven't you? "

" No, I never saw him."

" Well, if you are a high-priced man, you will do exactly as this
man tells you to-morrow, from morning till night. When he tells
you to pick up a pig and walk, you pick it up and you walk, and when
he tells you to sit down and rest you sit down. You do that right
straight through the day. And what's more, no back talk. Do you
understand that? When this man tells you to walk, you walk; when
he tells you to sit down, you sit down, and you don't talk back at him.
Now you come on to work here to-morrow morning and I'll know be-
fore night whether you are really a high-priced man or not."

This seems to be rather rough talk. And indeed it would be if ap-
plied to an educated mechanic, or even an intelligent laborer. With

SYSTEMIZING SCHMIDT 45

a man of the mentally sluggish type of Schmidt it is appropriate and
not unkind, since it is eifective in fixing his attention on the high wages
which he wants and away from what, if it were called to his attention,
he probably would consider impossibly hard work.

If Schmidt had been permitted to attack the pile of forty-
seven tons of pig iron without any guidance, he probably
would have tired himself out before noon. He had to be
taught the habit of resting at the intervals needed to restore
the tissues of his arm muscles to their normal condition. This
was the science of his work. How could he possibly have
discovered this science for himself?

I assert, without the slightest hesitation [said Taylor], that the
high-class mechanic has a far smaller chance of ever thoroughly un-
derstanding the science of his work than the pig-iron handler has of
understanding the science of his work, and I am going to try to prove
to your satisfaction, gentlemen, that the law is almost universal — not
entirely so, but nearly so — that the man who is fit to work at any
particular trade is unable to understand the science of that trade with-
out the kindly help and cooperation of men of a totally different type
of education, men whose education is not necessarily higher but a
different type from his own.^

After they got Schmidt started off on piece work, difficulty
was experienced in getting other pig-iron handlers to follow
him. The great majority could not believe that the rate
would not be cut. For this Taylor was prepared, but he
hardly was prepared either for the attempts to balk him made
by men who were of the management of the works or for
the opposition to his methods that sprang up among some of
the leading citizens of Bethlehem. " One after another of
the new men who were started singly on this job were either
persuaded or intimidated into giving it up. In many cases
they were given other work by those interested in preventing

^ Testimony before Special House Committee.

46 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

piece work, at wages higher than the ruling wages." ^ He
was amazed when he discovered what was back of this opposi-
tion.

I got into a big row with the owners of the company on that labor
question. They did not wish me, as they said, to depopulate South
Bethlehem. They owned all the houses in South Bethlehem and the
company stores, and when they saw we were cutting the labor force
down to about one-fourth, they did not want it. They came to me
and said so frankly. " We don't want that done," they said.

I said: "You are going to have it, whether you want it or not, as
long as I am here. You employed me with the distinct understanding
that that is what I was going to do. You agreed to it, and got me
here for that purpose. You had a unanimous vote. I would not come
here if there was a single man that did not want what I was going
to do."

" Well, we did not think you could do it."

I said: " I don't care what you thought. Your remedy is at hand.
Tell me any night you want me to go, and I go to-morrow morning.
On the other hand, Mr. President, just countermand one of my orders
and I will go to-morrow morning, but while I am here I am going
to do what I came to do, whether you like it or not. If you did not
want that done, it was up to you to say so when I put it in writing.
You agreed to it and said you wanted it. It is going to be done.^

This would appear to be a fair specimen of the many
encounters that came to pass between Taylor and Linderm^an.
It is undoubtedly true that Taylor not only became disgusted
and impatient with Linderman as a financier pure and simple,
but, restive as he always was under tactful methods, presently
abandoned much attempt to conceal it. The devil-may-care
attitude in which he indulged more and more at Bethlehem
also added to the feeling against him. He had an appoint-
ment one day with Linderman and other of the officials j not
only did he arrive half an hour late, but, as if to add insult

^ Shop Management, p. 50. ^ Informal talk at Boxly.

SYSTEMIZING SCHMIDT 47

to injury, came in swinging a golf club and proceeded to talk
golf. This is one side of itj the other is that as things de-
veloped between him and Linderman, nothing he could have
done would have saved him from the necessity of having to
choose among these three courses: first, to sacrifice his prin-
ciples to the exigencies of the situation; second, to quitj third,
to go ahead in defiance of all opposition. Should he have
chosen one of the first two courses? The simple fact is that
if he had, he would not have been Fred Taylor,

There is a story, which at least has the merit of plausibility,
that such of the directors as lived in Bethlehem assembled
one day determined to heckle Taylor into resigning. Their
heckling ceased abruptly when Taylor told them that he was
fully aware of their purpose, but they might as well under-
stand first as last that in order to get rid of him they would
have to fire him — and what was more, they one and all
could go to blue blazes. Those Bethlehemites surely were in
an unfortunate position. Behind Taylor stood that powerful
man, Joseph Wharton, who was not of Bethlehem and cared
little or nothing about Bethlehem's local concerns. But this,
it is to be presumed, was not all. There is some power in
truth and right, and some notion those directors must have
had that Taylor's whole course was marked by steadfast loy-
alty to the highest interests of the company and partook of
the downright honesty of the sunlight. At all events, his
opponents must have felt that if they dismissed him or openly
thwarted him, it would be hard for them to explain their action
to Wharton satisfactorily.

It must be understood that while Taylor was systemizing
the yard labor, there was no hold-up in the regular work.
Even while Schmidt, for example, was handling forty-seven
tons a day on piece work, the other pig-iron handlers con-
tinued to work in the old way under their old foreman.
Gradually the suspicions of the other men were overcome.

48 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

The spectacle of Schmidt, plainly not over-worked, and yet
getting $1.85 day after day while they were getting only
$1.15, was too much for them. Though the first men who
attempted to follow Schmidt were weaned away, all opposi-
tion ceased in about two months. It proved, however, that
only about one man in eight in that gang of seventy-five was
physically capable of handling forty-seven tons a day.

Now the one man in eight who was able to do this work [said
Taylor] was in no sense superior to the other men who were working
on the gang. He merely happened to be a man of the type of the ox,
— no rare specimen of humanity, difficult to find and therefore very
highly prized. On the contrary, he was a man so stupid that he
was unfitted to do most kinds of laboring work, even. The selection
of the man, then, does not involve finding some extraordinary indi-
vidual, but merely picking out from among very ordinary men the few
who are especially suited to this type of work.^

However, to make up his special force of pig-iron handlers,
he had to get some men from outside the works. So he
scattered broadcast the information that he was looking for
high-frked men. His canny purpose, of course, was to fix
the minds of those laborers on what they were going to get.

With the old idea of putting it up to the workman, you would go
to a workman and say: "Now, John, you are a mighty strong fellow.
Don't you think you can do 47 tons of pig iron a day? " John would
immediately say: " Why, hell, I have only done twelve and a half. No
man can do 47 tons." Then there would be an argument between
you and John, and you would compromise on about twenty or
eighteen.^

The fact that he found it necessary to take the mind of
the laborer ofF the task and fix it on the reward was too

^ The Principles of Scientific Management, p. 61.
2 Boxly talk.

SYSTEMIZING SCHMIDT 49

esoteric for those small-town newspaper men to comprehend-
However, it worked out to his advantage.

The newspapers, even in ridicuh'ng us, did us the greatest service.
They made no end of fun of me because I came into that country
looking for high-priced men. They beh'eved every man in Bethlehem
was a high-priced man, that we would not have the slightest trouble
getting men willing to accept $1.85 a day. All the newspapers
roasted us, and gave us the best advertisement all over. That went
around the country for a hundred miles. The result was that every
fellow who thought he was specially big and strong, and heard about
this pig-iron job, and then other jobs afterward, wanted to find out
whether he was a high-priced man; not whether it was a big day's
work, but whether he was a high-priced man or not.^

Under his methods, the cost of handling pig iron was just
about cut in half. And he was under the impression that what
he had done was a good thing for everybody.

With most readers [he wrote] great sympathy will be aroused be-
cause seven out of eight of those pig-iron handlers were thrown out
of a job. This sympathy is entirely wasted, because almost all of
them were immediately given other jobs with the Bethlehem Steel
Company. And indeed it should be understood that the removal of
those men from pig-iron handling, for which they were unfit, was
really a kindness to themselves, because it was the first step towards
finding them work for which they were peculiarly fitted, and at
which, after receiving proper training, they could permanently and
legitimately earn higher wages. ^

However, when his paper The Principles was published in
191 1 in The American Magazine y what he said in it about
Schmidt and his fellows elicited many letters of condemna-
tion. Ladies wrote to the editor to express their horror at the
brutal way that poor pig-iron handler had been handled.
Socialists were furious at what, in the name of science, had

1 Ibid. - The Princifles of Scientific Management, p. 64.

50 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

been " put over on " Schmidt. Friends of labor declared their
indignation that Taylor should speak of any workman as
stupid and ox-like. One of the more temperate of the letters
came from a young Socialist named Upton Sinclair. If we
here print Mr. Sinclair's letter, it is simply because Taylor
considered it wise to reply to it as fairly representative. Ad-
dressing the editor of TJie American Magazine under date
of February 24, 191 1, Mr. Sinclair said:

I have been reading with a great deal of interest the first installment
of Mr. Frederick W. Taylor's account of " Scientific Management."
He tells how workingmen were loading twelve and a half tons of
pig iron and he induced them to load forty-seven tons instead. They
had formerly been getting $1.15; he paid them $1.85. Thus it
appears that he gave about 61% increase in wages, and got 362%
increase in work. I shall not soon forget the picture which he gave
us of the poor old laborer who was trying to build his pitiful little
home after hours, and who was induced to give 362% more work
for 6 1 % more pay. I wonder how Mr. Taylor and his colleagues
arrive at the latter figure. He tells us just how by scientific figuring
he learned that the man could lift 47 pounds of pig iron, but he does
not tell us by what scientific figures he arrived at the conclusion that
he should receive $1.85 for the work, instead of, let us say, $2.85.
Can it by any chance be that he figured upon this basis? — The
workingmen for the steel plant are at present producing $1,000 worth
of value and getting $168.00; therefore, if we can induce them to
produce 362% more, they would then receive 16.8% of the additional
increase. I believe that those members of the working-class who
read the American Magazine would be interested to know just what
proportion they get of the value they produce under the old system,
and what proportion they are to get under the new " scientific "
system.

Also, I want to put a few more questions in elementary political
economy to Mr. Taylor. He tells us we have no need to worry because
seven men out of eight are turned out of their jobs by the new system,
because there are plenty of jobs for them in other parts of the plant.

SYSTEMIZING SCHMIDT 51

Is that really so? And is it so everywhere? If so, then the phenom-
enon of over-production is just a delusion of our captains of industry,
and there is no real reason for panics. Our scientific managers w^ill
increase the total product of the country's machinery 362%; they
will have 362 times as many products to market — where will they
find the markets for the additional products? When they have
taught one-fourth of the workingmen to do the work of all the work-
ingmen, is it their plan to organize the remaining three-fourths into
armies, and send them out to conquer new foreign markets? Or
will they find a new world for them to build up?

I, as you may perhaps know, am one of those Utopian persons who
do not believe that the working class of America will ever consent
to produce $1,000 worth of value and get $168.00 in return. I
believe that the time will come when they will take possession of the
instruments and means of production, in order that when they pro-
duce $1,000 in value they may receive $1,000 in wages.

From this point Mr. Sinclair went on " to suggest to Mr.
Taylor and his other experts " that they drop the work they
were doing and devote all their energies to figuring out how
"to produce a standard income of, say $5,000 a year for each
family." He was sure that a book containing this informa-
tion, if published at fifty cents, would have a large sale.

As Taylor's reply to this young man probably represents
the most careful statement of his industrial philosophy he ever
made, we give it in full:

Doubtless some of those who like Mr. Upton Sinclair are espe-
cially interested in workingmen will complain because under scien-
tific management the workman when he is shown how to do twice as
much work as he formerly did is not paid twice his former wages,
while others who are more interested in the dividends than the work-
men, will complain that under this system the men receive much
higher wages than they did before.

It does seem grossly unjust when the bare statement is made that
the competent pig-iron handler, for instance, who has been so trained

52 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

that he piles 3.6 times as much iron as the incompetent man formerly
did, should receive an increase of only 60% in his wages.

It is not fair, however, to form any final judgment until all of
the elements in the case have been considered. Mr. Sinclair sees but
one man — the workman; he refuses to see that the great increase
in output under scientific management is the result not only of the
workman's effort but quite as much also of the study of pig-iron hand-
ling by the management and of the cooperation of teachers who help
him and the organization which plans and measures his daily task,
etc., and that all of this extra work on the part of the management
as well as the proper profit of the latter, must be paid for out of
the increase in output. At the first glance, most of us, in fact, will see
only two parties to the transaction, the workmen and their employers.
We overlook the third great party, the whole people, the consumers,
who buy the product of the first two and who ultimately pay both the
wages of the workmen and the profits of the employers.

The rights of the people are therefore greater than those of either
employer or employee. And this third great party should be given
its proper share of any gain. In fact, a glance at industrial history
shows that in the end the whole people receive the greater part of the
benefit coming from industrial improvements. In the past hundred
years, for example, the greatest factor tending toward increasing the
output and thereby the prosperity of the civilized world, has been
the introduction of machinery to replace hand labor. And without
doubt the greatest gain through this change has come to the whole
people — the consumer.

Through short periods, especially in the case of patented apparatus,
the dividends of those who have introduced new machinery have been
greatly increased, and in most cases, though unfortunately not uni-
versally, the employees have obtained materially higher wages, shorter
hours and better working conditions. But in the end the major part
of the gain has gone to the whole people.

And this result will follow the introduction of scientific manage-
ment just as surely as it has the introduction of machinery.

To return to the case of the pig-iron handler. We must assume,
then, that the larger part of the gain which has come from his great
increase in output will in the end go to the people in the form of

SYSTEMIZING SCHMIDT 53

cheaper pig iron. And before deciding upon how the balance is to be
divided between the workman and the employer — as to what is
just and fair compensation for the man who does the piling and what
should be left for the company as profit — we must look at the
matter from all sides.

First: As we have before stated, the pig-iron handler is not an
extraordinary man difficult to find; he is merely a man more or less
of the type of the ox, heavy both mentally and physically.

Second: The work which this man does tires him no more than any
healthy normal laborer is tired by a proper day's work. (If this man
is overtired by his work, then the task has been wrongly set, and this
is as far as possible from the object of scientific management.)

Third: It was not due to the man's initiative or originality that he
did his big day's work, but to the knowledge of pig-iron handling
developed and taught him by someone else.

Fourth: It is just and fair that men of the same general grade
(when their all-around capacities are considered) should be paid about
the same wages when they are all working to the best of their abilities.
(It would be grossly unjust to other laborers, for instance, to pay
this man 3.6 as high wages as other men of his general grade receive
for an honest full day's work.)

Fifth: A long series of experiments, coupled with close observation,
has demonstrated the fact that when workmen of the calibre of
the pig-iron handler are given a carefully-measured task, which
calls for a big day's work on their part, and that when in return
for this extra efirort they are paid wages up to 60 per cent, beyond
the wages usually paid, that this increase in wages tends to make
them not only more thrifty but better men in every way; that
they live rather better, begin to save money, become more sober,
and work more steadily. When, on the other hand, they receive
much more than a 60 per cent, increase in wages, many of them
will work irregularly and tend to become more or less shiftless,
extravagant and dissipated. Our experiments showed, in other words,
that for their own best interest it does not do for most men to get
rich too fast.

Thus we see th?t the pig-iron handler with his 60 per cent, increase

54 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

in wages is not an object for pity but rather a subject for congratu-
lation.

After all, however, facts are in many cases more convincing than
opinion or theories, and it is a significant fact that those workmen who
have come under this system during the past thirty years have inva-
riably been satisfied with their increase in pay while their employers
have been equally pleased with their increase in dividends.

The writer is one of those who believe that more and more will the
third party (the whole people), as it becomes acquainted with the true
facts, insist that justice shall be done to all three parties. First, it will
demand the largest efl!iciency from both employers and employees. It
will no longer tolerate the type of employer who has his eye on divi-
dends alone, who refuses to do his full share of the work and who
merely cracks his whip over the heads of his workmen and attempts
to drive them into harder work for low pay. No more will it tolerate
tyranny on the part of labor which demands one increase after another
in pay and shorter hours, while at the same time it becomes less in-
stead of more efficient.

And the means which the writer firmly believes will be adopted
to bring about, first, efficiency both in employer and employee and then
an equitable division of the profits of their joint eflForts, will be sci-
entific management, which has for its sole aim the attainment of
justice for all three parties through impartial scientific investigation
of all the elements of the problem. For a time both sides will rebel
against this advance. The workers will resent any interference with
their old rule of thumb methods, and the management will resent
being asked to take on new duties and burdens; but in the end the
people through enlightened public opinion will force the new order of
things upon both employer and employee.

Those who, like Mr. Sinclair, are afraid that a large increase in
the productivity of each workman will throw the men out of work,
should realize that the one element more than any other which dif-
ferentiates civilized from uncivilized countries — prosperous from
poverty-stricken peoples — is that the average man in the one is five
or six times as productive as in the other. It is also a fact tha^t the
chief cause for the large percentage of the unemployed in England
(perhaps the most virile nation in the world) is that the workmen of

SYSTEMIZING SCHMIDT 5$

England, more than in any other civilized country, are deliberately
restricting their output because they are possessed by the fallacy that
it is against their best interest for each man to work as hard as he can.

Later on in 191 1 a report was circulated by opponents of
Scientific Management that Schmidt had naturally succumbed
to the task laid upon him by Fred Taylor — that Schmidt,
in fact, was quite dead. From his home in Chestnut Hill
Taylor made a special trip to Bethlehem, and there saw one
of the officials of the steel works who, being friendly to him
personally, promised to look up Schmidt. A few day later
this official wrote: "Our records show that he [Schmidt]
left our employ in June, 1908, since which time we have lost
track of him, although I understand that he is still living and
is somewhere in this vicinity." This was all the information
that anyone connected with the company would vouchsafe,
since as this official wrote, it was the company's policy " to
avoid any controversy."

Again in 19 13, in connection with the legislation in Con-
gress designed to frustrate General Crozier's attempt to in-
troduce Scientific Management into the Ordnance Department,
the report was current among labor politicians that Schmidt
had been killed by his task of handling forty-seven tons of pig
iron a day. Now was Taylor determined to lay the serio-
comic ghost of Schmidt forever, and this time he succeeded.
Through the inspector of the Ordnance Department stationed
at the Bethlehem works, Schmidt was found in that town, and
in January, 19 14, A. B. Wadleigh was commissioned by
Taylor to employ a physician and report on Schmidt. All
we need say about the report is that in it the physician, Dr.
C. L. Johnstonbaugh, of Bethlehem, certified as follows: " I
find him [Schmidt] to be forty-four years old and is now

employed by handling graphite. Works from ten

to twelve hours per day and is in good physical condition."

CHAPTER V

A TALE OF SHOVELING

IT makes three thick volumes, the testimony that was taken
in 1 9 1 1 and 1 9 1 2 by that Special Committee of the
House of Representatives which was formed to investigate
" the Taylor and other systems of shop management." For-
midable-looking tomes. Terribly suggestive of dry-as-dust,
documentary officialdom. Who would imagine that buried
in them was anything in the way of real literature, much less
anything in the nature of poetry?

When in 191 2 Taylor testified before this committee, he
had come to realize the need of dropping the illustration of
the pig-iron handlers. So, as a substitute illustration, he
described his work with the shovelers in the Bethlehem yard.
What he said in this connection we shall print in full. No
better example could be given of the sweep and surge of a
Fred Taylor talk. Shoveling coal, ore, and sand in the yards
of a steel works — what could be more dreary? Yet it was
this, we think, that led to the creation of a piece of real litera-
ture. Certainly it would seem as if an expert in that sort
of thing could take these words of Taylor's and readily make
them into vers litres. At all events, here they arej and let
it be understood that the tempo generally is presto and fre-
quently prestissimo:

I dare say most of you gentlemen are familiar with pig-iron hand-
ling and with the illustration I have used in connection with it, so
I won't take up any of your time with that. But I want to show you
how these principles may be applied to some one of the lower classes
of work. You may think I am a little highfalutin when I speak

S6

A TALE OF SHOVELING 57

about what may be called the atmosphere of scientific management,
the relations that should exist between both sides, the intimate and
friendly relations that should exist between employee and employer. I
want, however, to emphasize this as one of the most important
features of scientific management, and I can hardly do so without go-
ing into detail, without explaining minutely the duties of both sides,
and for this reason I want to take some of your time in explaining
the application of these four principles of scientific management to
one of the cheaper kinds of work, for instance, to shoveling. This
is one of the simplest kinds of work, and I want to give you an
illustration of the application of these principles to it.

Now, gentlemen, shoveling is a great science compared with pig-
iron handling. I dare say that most of you gentlemen know that a
good many pig-iron handlers can never learn to shovel right; the ordi-
nary pig-iron handler is not the type of man well suited to shoveling.
He is too stupid; there is too much mental strain, too much knack re-
quired of a shoveler for the pig-iron handler to take kindly to shoveling.

You gentlemen may laugh, but that is true, all right; it sounds ridic-
ulous, I know, but it is a fact. Now, if the problem were put up to
any of you men to develop the science of shoveling as it was put up to
us — that is, to a group of men who had deliberately set out to develop
the science of doing all kinds of laboring work — where do you think
you would begin? When you started to study the science of shoveling
I make the assertion that you would be within two days — just as
we were within two days — well on the way toward the development
of the science of shoveling. At least you would have outlined in
your minds those elements which required careful, scientific study in
order to understand the science of shoveling. I do not want to go
into all the details, but I will give you some of the elements, one or
two of the most important elements of the science of shoveling; that
is, the elements that reach further and have more serious consequences
than any other. Probably the most important element in the science
of shoveling is this: There must be some shovel load at which a first-
class shoveler will do his biggest day's work. What is the load? To
illustrate: When we went to the Bethlehem Steel Works and observed
the shovelers in the yard of that company, we found that each of the
good shovelers in that yard owned his own shovel; they preferred to

58 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

buy their own shovels rather than to have the company furnish them.
There vi^as a larger tonnage of ore shoveled in that vs^orks than of any
other material, and rice coal came next in tonnage. We vi^ould
see a first-class shoveler go from shoveling rice coal with a load of
3"^ pounds to the shovel to handling ore from the Messaba Range,
with 38 pounds to the shovel. Now, is 2 2 pounds the proper shovel
load or is 38 pounds the proper shovel load? They cannot both be
right. Under scientific management the answer to this question is not
a matter of anyone's opinion; it is a question for accurate, careful,
scientific investigation.

Under the old system you would call in a first-rate shoveler and say,
" See here, Pat, how much ought you to take on at one shovel load? "
And if a couple of fellows agreed, you would say that's about the
right load and let it go at that. But under scientific management
absolutely every element in the work of every man in your establish-
ment, sooner or later, becomes the subject of exact, precise, scientific
investigation and knowledge to replace the old " I believe so," and
" I guess so." Every motion, every small fact becomes the subject of
careful, scientific investigation.

What we did was to call in a number of men to pick from, and
from these we selected two first-class shovelers. Gentlemen, the
words I used were " first-class shovelers." I want to emphasize that.
Not poor shovelers. Not men unsuited to their work, but first-class
shovelers. These men were then talked to in about this way: "See
here, Pat and Mike, you fellows understand your job all right; both
of you fellows are first-class men; you know what we think of you;
you are all right now; but we want to pay you fellows double wages.
We are going to ask you both to do a lot of damn fool things, and when
you are doing them there is going to be some one out alongside of you
all the time, a young chap with a piece of paper and a stop watch and
pencil, and all day long he will tell you to do these fool things, and he
will be writing down what you are doing and snapping the watch on
you and all that sort of business. Now, we just want to know whether
you fellows want to go into that bargain or not? If you want double
wages while that is going on, all right, we will pay you double; if
you don't, all right, you needn't take the job unless you want to; we
just called you in to see whether you want to work this way or not.

A TALE OF SHOVELING 59

" Let me tell you fellows just one thing: if you go into this bargain,
if you go at it, just remember that on your side we want no monkey
business of any kind; you fellows will have to play square; you fel-
lows will have to do just what you are supposed to be doing: not a
damn bit of soldiering on your part; you must do a fair day's work;
we don't want any rushing, only a fair day's work and you know
what that is as well as we do. Now, don't take this job unless you
agree to these conditions, because if you start to try to fool this same
young chap with the pencil and paper he will be on to you in 15'
minutes from the time you try to fool him, and just as surely as he
reports you fellows as soldiering you will go out of this works and
you will never get in again. Now, don't take this job unless you
want to accept these conditions; you need not do it unless you want
to; but if you do, play fair."

Well, these fellows agreed to it, and, as I have found almost uni-
versally to be the case, they kept their word absolutely and faithfully.
My experience with workmen has been that their word is just as good
as the word of any other set of men that I know of, and all you have
to do is to have a clear, straight, square understanding with them
and you will get just as straight and fair a deal from them as from
any other set of men. In this way the shoveling experiment was
started. My remembrance is that we first started them on work that
was very heavy, work requiring a very heavy shovel load. What we
did was to give them certain kinds of heavy material — ore, I think,
— to handle with a certain size of shovel. We sent these two men
into different parts of the yard, with two different men to time and
study them, both sets of men being engaged on the same class of work.
We made all the conditions the same for both pairs of men, so as to
be sure that there was no error in judgment on the part of either of
the observers and that they were normal, first-class men.

The number of shovel loads which each man handled in the course
of the day was counted and written down. At the end of the day
the total tonnage of the material handled by each man was weighed
and this weight was divided by the number of shovel loads handled, and
in that way, my remembrance is, our first experiment showed that
the average shovel load handled was 38 pounds, and that with this
load on the shovel the man handled, say about 25 tons per day. We

6o FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

then cut the shovel off, making it somewhat shorter, so that instead
of shoveling a load of 38 pounds it held a load of approximately
34 pounds. The average, then, with the 34 pound load, of each man
went up, and instead of handling 25 he had handled 30 tons per day.
These figures are merely relative, used to illustrate the general prin-
ciple, and I do not mean that they were the exact figures. The shovel
was again cut off, and the load made approximately 30 pounds, and
again the tonnage ran up, and again the shovel load was reduced, and
the tonnage handled per day increased, until at about 21 or 22 pounds
per shovel we found that these men were doing their largest day's
work. If you cut the shovel load off still imore, say until it averages
18 pounds instead of 21^, the tonnage handled per day will begin to
fall off, and at 16 pounds it will be still lower, and so on right down.
Very well; we now have developed the scientific fact that a workman
well suited to his job, what we call a first-class shoveler, will do his
largest day's work when he has a shovel load of 21^ pounds.

Now, what does that fact amount to? At first it may not look to
be a fact of much importance, but let us see what it amounted to
right there in the yard of the Bethlehem Steel Co. Under the old
system, as I have said before, the workmen owned their shovels, and
the shovel was the same size whatever the kind of work. Now, as
a matter of common sense, we saw at once that it was necessary to
furnish each workman each day with a shovel which would hold just
21^ pounds of the particular material which he was called upon to
shovel. A small shovel for the heavy material, such as ore, and a
large scoop for light material, such as ashes. That meant, also, the
building of a large shovel room, where all kinds of laborers' imple-
ments were stored. It meant having an ample supply of each type
of shovel, so that all the men who might be called upon to use a cer-
tain type in any one day could be supplied with a shovel of the size
desired that would hold just 2i-| pounds. It meant, further, that each
day each laborer should be given a particular kind of work to which
he was suited, and that he must be provided with a particular shovel
suited to that kind of work, whereas in the past all the laborers in the
yard of the Bethelehem Steel Co. had been handled in masses, or in
great groups of men, by the old-fashioned foreman, who had from
25 to 100 men under him and walked them from one part of the yard

A TALE OF SHOVELING 6i

to another. You must realize that the yard of the Bethlehem Steel
Co. at that time was a very large yard. I should say that it was at
least i^ or 2 miles long and, we will say, a quarter to a half mile
wide, so it was a good large yard; and in that yard at all times an
immense variety of shoveling was going on.

There was comparatively little standard shoveling which went on
uniformly from day to day. Each man was likely to be moved from
place to place about the yard several times in the course of the day.
All of this involved keeping in the shovel room lo or 15 kinds of
shovels, ranging from a very small flat shovel for handling ore up to
immense scoops for handling rice coal, and forks with which to
handle coke, which, as you know, is very light. It meant the study
and development of the implement best suited to each type of material
to be shoveled, and assigning, with the minimum of trouble, the proper
shovel to each one of the four to six hundred laborers at work in that
yard. Now, that meant mechanism, human mechanism. It meant
organizing and planning work at least a day in advance. And, gentle-
men, here is an important fact, that the greatest difficulty which we
met with in this planning did not come from the workmen. It came
from the management's side. Our greatest difficulty was to get the
heads of the various departments each day to inform the men in the
labor office what kind of work and how much of it was to be done on
the following day.

This planning the work one day ahead involved the building of a
labor office where before there was no such thing. It also involved the
equipping of that office with large maps showing the layout of the
yards so that the movements of the men from one part of the yard
to another could be laid out in advance, so that we could assign to this
little spot in the yard a certain number of men and to another part
of the yard another set of men, each group to do a certain kind of
work. It was practically like playing a game of chess in which the
four to six hundred men were moved about so as to be in the right
place at the right time. And all this, gentlemen, follows from the
one idea of developing the science of shoveling; the idea that you
must give each workman each day a job to which he is well suited
and provide him with just that implement which will enable him to
do his biggest day's work. All this, as I have tried to make clear to

62 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

you, is the result that followed from the one act of developing the
science of shoveling.

In order that our workmen should get their share of the good that
came from the development of the science of shoveling and that we
should do what we set out to do with our laborers — namely, pay
them 60 per cent higher wages than were paid to any similar work-
men around that whole district. Before we could pay them these
extra high wages it was necessary for us to be sure that we had first-
class men and that each laborer was well suited to his job, because
the only way in which you can pay wages 60 per cent higher than
other people pay and not overwork your men is by having each man
properly suited and well trained to his job. Therefore, it became
necessary to carefully select these yard laborers; and in order that
the men should join with us heartily and help us in their selection it
became necessary for us to make it possible for each man to know
each morning as he came in to work that on the previous day he had
earned his 60 per cent premium, or that he had failed to do so. So
here again comes in a lot of work to be done by the management
that had not been done before. The first thing each workman did
when he came into the yard in the morning — and I may say that
a good many of them could not read and write — was to take two
pieces of paper out of his pigeonhole; if they were both white slips
of paper, the workman knew he was all right. One of those slips
of paper informed the man in charge of the tool room what imple-
ment the workman was to use on his first job and also in what part
of the yard he was to work. It was in this way that each one of the
600 men in that yard received his orders for the kind of work he was
to do and the implement with which he was to do it, and he was also
sent right to the part of the yard where he was to work, without any
delay whatever. The old-fashioned way was for the workmen to
wait until the foreman got good and ready and had found out by asking
some of the heads of departments what work he was to do, and then he
would lead the gang off to some part of the yard and go to work.
Under the new method each man gets his orders almost automatically;
he goes right to the tool room, gets the proper implement for the
work he is to do, and goes right to the spot where he is to work with-
out any delay.

A TALE OF SHOVELING 63

The second piece of paper, if it was a white piece of paper, showed
this man that he had earned his 60 per cent higher wages; if it was
a yellow piece of paper the workman knew that he had not earned
enough to be a first-class man, and that within two or three days some-
thing would happen and he was absolutely certain what this something
would be. Every one of them knew that after he had received three
or four yellow slips a teacher would be sent down to him from the
labor office. Now, gentlemen, this teacher was no college professor.
He was a teacher of shoveling; he understood the science of shoveling;
he was a good shoveler himself, and he knew how to teach other men
to be good shovelers. This is the sort of man who was sent out of the
labor office. I want to emphasize the following point, gentlemen:
The workman, instead of hating the teacher who came to him — in-
stead of looking askance at him and saying to himself, " Here comes
one of those damn nigger drivers to drive me to work " — looked
upon him as one of the best friends he had around there. He knew
that he came out there to help him, not to nigger drive him. Now,
let me show you what happens. The teacher comes, in every case,
not to bulldoze the man, not to drive him to harder work than he
can do, but to try in a friendly, brotherly way to help him, so he says,
" Now, Pat, something has gone wrong with you. You know no
workman who is not a high-priced workman can stay on this gang,
and you will have to get off of it if we can't find out what is the
matter with you. I believe you have forgotten how to shovel right.
I think that's all there is the matter with you. Go ahead and let me
watch you a while. I want to see if you know how to do the damn
thing, anyway."

Now, gentlemen, I know you will laugh when I talk again about
the science of shoveling. I dare say some of you have done some
shoveling. Whether you have or not, I am going to try to show you
something about the science of shoveling, and if any of you have done
much shoveling you will understand that there is a good deal of sci-
ence about it.

There is a good deal of refractory stuff to shovel around a steel
works; take ore, or ordinary bituminous coal, for instance. It takes
a good deal of effort to force the shovel down into either of these
materials from the top of the pile, as you have to when you are un-

64 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

loading a car. There is one right way of forcing the shovel into
materials of this sort, and many wrong ways. Now, the way to shovel
refractory stuff is to press the forearm hard against the upper part of
the right leg just below the thigh, like this [indicating], take the
end of the shovel in your right hand and when you push the shovel
into the pile, instead of using the muscular effort of the arms, which
is tiresome, throw the weight of your body on the shovel like this
[indicating] ; that pushes your shovel in the pile with hardly any ex-
ertion and without tiring the arms in the least. Nine out of ten
workmen who try to push a shovel in a pile of that sort will use the
strength of their arms, which involves more than twice the necessary
exertion. Any of you men who don't know this fact just try it. This
is one illustration of what I mean when I speak of the science of shov-
eling, and there are many similar elements of this science. Now, this
teacher would find, time and time again, that the shoveler had simply
forgotten how to shovel; that he had drifted back into his old wrong
and inefficient way of shoveling, which prevented him from earning
his 60 per cent higher wages. So he would say to him, " I see all that
is the matter with you is that you have just forgotten how to shovel;
you have forgotten what I showed you about shoveling some time ago.
Now, watch me," he says, " this is the way to do the thing." And the
teacher will stay by him two, three, four, or five days, if necessary,
until he got the man back again into the habit of shoveling right.

Now, gentlemen, I want you to see clearly that, because that is one
of the characteristic features of scientific management; this is not
nigger driving; this is kindness; this is teaching; this is doing what
I would like mighty well to have done to me if I were a boy trying to
learn how to do something. This is not a case of cracking a whip
over a man and saying, " Damn you, get there." The old way of
treating with workmen, on the other hand, even with a good foreman,
would have been something like this: " See here, Pat, I have sent for
you to come up here to the office to see me; four or five times now
you have not earned your 60 per cent increase in wages; you know
every workman in this place has got to earn 60 per cent more wages
than they pay in any other place around here, but you're no good and
that's all there is to it; now get out of this." That's the old way.
" You are no good; we have given you a fair chance; get out of this,"

A TALE OF SHOVELING 6s

and the workman is pretty lucky if it isn't " get to hell out of this,"
instead of " get out of this."

The new way is to teach and help your men as you would a brother;
to try to teach him the best way and show him the easiest way to do
his work. This is the new mental attitude of the management toward
the men, and that is the reason I have taken so much of your time in
describing this cheap work of shoveling. It may seem to you a matter
of very little consequence, but I want you to see, if I can, that this
new mental attitude is the very essence of scientific management; that
the mechanism is nothing if you have not got the right sentiment, the
right attitude in the minds of the men, both on the management's side
and on the workman's side. Because this helps to explain the fact that
until this summer there has never been a strike under scientific manage-
ment.

The men who developed the science of shoveling spent, I should say,
four or five months studying the subject, and during that time they in-
vestigated not only the best and most efficient movements that the men
should make when they are shoveling right, but they also studied the
proper time for doing each of the elements of the science of shoveling.
There are many other elements which go to make up this science,
but I will not take up your time in describing them.

Now, all of this costs money. To pay the salaries of men who are
studying the science of shoveling is an expensive thing. As I remem-
ber it there were two college men who studied this science of shoveling
and also the science of doing many other kinds of laboring work dur-
ing a period of about three years; then there were a lot of men in
the labor office whose wages had to be paid, men who were planning
the work which each laborer was to do at least a day in advance; clerks
who worked all night so that each workman might know the next
morning when he went to work just what he had accomplished and
what he had earned the day before; men who wrote out the proper
instructions for the day's work for each workman. All of this costs
money; it costs money to measure or weigh up the materials handled
by each man each day. Under the old methods the work of 50 to 60
men was weighed up together; the work done by the whole gang was
measured together. But under scientific management we are deal-
ing with individual men and not with gangs of men. And in order

66 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

to study and develop each man you must measure accurately each
man's work. At first we were told that this would be impossible.
The former managers of this work told me: "You cannot possibly
measure up the work of each individual laborer in this yard; you might
be able to do it in a small yard, but our work is of such an intricate
nature that it is impossible to do it here."

I want to say that we had almost no trouble in finding some cheap
way of measuring up each man's work, not only in that yard but
throughout the entire plant.

But all of that costs money, and it is a very proper question to ask
whether it pays or whether it doesn't pay, because, let me tell you,
gentlemen, at once, and I want to be emphatic about it, scientific man-
agement has nothing in it that is philanthropic; I am not objecting to
philanthropy, but any scheme of management which has philanthropy
as one of its elements ought to fail; philanthropy has no part in any
scheme of management. No self-respecting workman wants to be
given things, every man wants to earn things, and scientific manage-
ment is no scheme for giving people something they do not earn. So,
if the principles of scientific management do not pay, then this is a
miserable system. The final test of any system is, does it pay?

At the end of some three and a half years we had the opportunity
of proving whether or not scientific management did pay in its ap-
plication to yard labor. When we went to the Bethlehem Steel Co.
we found from 400 to 600 men at work in that yard, and when we
got through 140 men were doing the work of the 400 to 600, and
these men handled several million tons of material a year.

We were very fortunate to be able to get accurate statistics as to
the cost of handling a ton of materials in that yard under the old
system and under the new. Under the old system the cost of handling
a ton of materials had been running between 7 and 8 cents, and all
you gentlemen familiar with railroad work know that this a low
figure for handling materials. Now, after paying for all the clerical
work which was necessary under the new system for the time study and
the teachers, for building and running the labor office and the im-
plement room, for constructing a telephone system for moving men
about the yard, for a great variety of duties not performed under the
old system, after paying for all these things incident to the develop-

A TALE OF SHOVELING 67

ment of the science of shoveling and managing the men the new way,
and including the wages of the workmen, the cost of handling a ton
was brought down from between 7 and 8 cents to between 3 and
4 cents, and the actual saving, during the last six months of the three
and one-half years I was there, was at the rate of $78,000 a year.
That is what the Company got out of itj while the men who were on
the labor gang received an average of sixty per cent more wages than
their brothers got or could get anywhere around that part of the coun-
try. And none of them were overworked, for it is not a part of
scientific management ever to overwork any man; certainly over-
working these men could not have been done with the knowledge of
anyone connected with scientific management, because one of the
first requirements of scientific management is that no man shall ever
be given a job which he cannot do and thrive under through a long
term of years. It is no part of scientific management to drive anyone.
At the end of three years we had men talk to and investigate all of
these yard laborers and we found that they were almost universally
satisfied with their jobs.

Of course certain men are permanent grouches and when we run
across that kind we all know what to expect. But, in the main, they
were the most satisfied and contented set of laborers I have ever seen
anywhere; they lived better than they did before, and most of them
were saving a little money; their families lived better, and as to having
any grouch against their employers, those fellows, every one, looked
upon them as the best friends they ever had, because they taught them
how to earn 60 per cent more wages than they had ever earned before.
This is the round up of both sides of this question. If the use of the
system does not make both sides happier, then it is no good.

CHAPTER VI

TAYLOR AND HIS ASSISTANTS

IT was not easy for Frederick Taylor to follow the example
of William Sellers and keep his mind open to criticism.
He was sensitive to criticism, and when the conclusions
he had arrived at after much labor were challenged, he was
likely to give way to irritation. While carefully avoiding
other people's ruts, he could fall into ruts of his own. With
his positiveness and his force, his self-confidence and his care-
less disregard of what people might think, he always was in
danger of becoming headstrong and domineering. Certainly
others were likely to find his influence overpowering.

For his own sake as well as their own, it behooves the asso-
ciates of such a man to arouse themselves and oifer him all
proper and seasonable resistance. And what made it possible
for eminently independent and combative citizens like Barth
and Gantt to get along with Taylor was that when this was
done in his case, he never failed to conquer himself, to act
reciprocally, to play the game. It might require some heroic
fighting to make him see he was wrong j but when he did
see it, his acknowledgment was free, open, humble, and hand-
some. Prove to him that your way was better, and he could
not do enough for you. So struck were you by the victories
he gained over his self-will that you could not help but love
him. He was an uncommon man, not because he did not
have impulses common to all men, but because of the way
he got the better of them.

Incidentally it may be said that, for his part, he had some-
thing to put up with in two such assistants as Barth and

68

TAYLOR AND HIS ASSISTANTS 69

Gantt. If, when he thought his chief was wrong, Barth
usually took no particular pains to break the news to him
tactfully, but just up and out with it, he thereby may have
paid his chief a compliment, but it was one not always easy to
appreciate. And it would be a great mistake to think that
because Gantt was a good manager, he was not a good fighter.
Maryland, where he came from, raises not only oysters and
celery-fed ducks but hotspurs. Taylor's two principal assist-
ants clashed with each other as well as with him. 'Tis said
that whenever Barth and Gantt became juxtapositional in
space, the air was likely to spit sparks. Years after their
association in Bethlehem, Barth used to enliven engineering
meetings by hurling at his old confrere the challenge, " The
trouble with you, Gantt, is that you left Mr. Taylor too
damn soon."

There was that in Taylor, of course, which enabled him to
get a lot of joy out of these combats. However irritated he
might be for the moment, he ultimately was refreshed when
men stood on their manhood and went back at him. So long
as clashes between or among men were open and above board,
so long as they were entirely free from malice and pertained
merely to the healthy self-assertion of high-spirited men, they
undoubtedly appealed to Taylor's love of sport and of mis-
chief as well as to his democratic instincts.

There came a time at Bethlehem when Taylor was prepar-
ing to take a short trip to Europe. Wadleigh, who was in
charge of the yard labor, wanted him to approve some piece
rates which had been worked out for this labor j it being gen-
erally felt among Taylor's assistants that the rates should be
put into effect at once to allay the dissatisfaction felt in high
quarters because of the large expense connected with the
systemizing of this labor. Taylor, however, then had no time
to go over the rates, and said the whole thing could wait
upon his return. In all likelihood his idea was that if those

70 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

high up did not like it, they could lump itj he now (in 1900)
having became thoroughly disgusted with their attitude.
Davenport then appealed to him in vain, and finally the
matter was put up to Barth as one who, previously having
battled with Taylor to some purpose, might be expected to
bring him around again. Realizing that unless a showing
were made with the yard labor, all that had been done in
this connection might be thrown out, and satisfying himself
that the rates were approximately correct, Barth moved in
force upon the recalcitrant one. The lions clinched and rolled
each other over in the dustj and then, all other measures
failing, Barth resolved to give his chief some of his own
medicine. It was Taylor's habit, in dealing with the people
over him, to threaten to withdraw when the things he wanted
done were not done. So now Barth up and said: " Mr.
Taylor, unless you approve these rates before you go away,
you are not likely to find me here when you get back." That
brought the desired action j Taylor approved the rates on
Barth's say soj and afterwards he said: " Barth is the kind of
a fellow who will not take no for an answer," thereby paying
him a compliment that in Taylor philosophy was of the
highest.

Doses of his own medicine, even stifFer than the foregoing,
Taylor took from Barth.

One day Captain Ruggles, an army officer stationed as an
inspector at Bethlehem, brought in to see Taylor a Colonel
Wheeler who was traveling that way. Colonel Wheeler, like
Captain Ruggles and Mr. Taylor, was a golf "fiend," and
all three stood talking golf. In the meantime Barth, having
something of importance to bring to Taylor's attention, was
restlessly cruising about in the offing, as the saying is. Others
having business with Taylor came along and stood in linej
and when Colonel Wheeler departed and Captain Ruggles
and Mr. Taylor went right on with their " fanning bee,"

TAYLOR AND HIS ASSISTANTS 71

Barth could stand it no longer. Approaching those two, he
let fall this bomb:

" Goddam your golf talk! I am here for business, and I
want attention! "

An officer of discretion as well as of valor. Captain Ruggles
quietly removed himself from the scene. But Taylor said
not a word. With teeth on lip, he took his seat at his desk,
while Barth drew up a chair alongside.

Barth now began to feel that he had been a little too rude.
" I am sorry I spoke as I did," he started to say; but Taylor
reached around and placed a hand on his shoulder. " It's
all right, Barth," he saidj "there are times when it is a sub-
ordinate's duty to call his superior's attention to his duty,
and that is all you did."

The musketeer-like nature of Earth's opening remark needs
a word of explanation. It came to be charged by Taylor's
opponents that he told Barth at Bethlehem that he did not
" cuss out " the men enough. The fact is that Taylor did
tell Barth that he did not swear enough to be successful in a
steel works, but the remark had nothing at all to do with
Barth's relations with any workmen; it had reference solely
to Barth's ability to get action from foremen and department
chiefs.

When Taylor offered his criticism, Barth replied mildly:
" I used to be able to swear pretty well; but, you see, I had
to break myself of the habit when I was teaching at the
Ethical Culture School."

" Well," said Taylor, grimly, " an Ethical Culture school
doubtless is a good place to stop swearing in, but you couldn't
find a better place to begin again than here at Bethlehem."

There was one particular in connection with which Taylor
could not be budged by any man high or low, and this had
to do with his rule of quitting work at 4 o'clock. No matter
how important your business was with him, if it was a minute

72 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

past four, that business must waitj and all of the swearing
that troopers ever did in Flanders would not now help you
one iota.

In his Boxly talk, Taylor told how he and Gantt had it
out when it came time to set those tasks for the handling of
rice coal. It had been determined, as we have seen, that the
best shovel was one that would hold a load of 21^ pounds.
But Gantt, who proved up all these tasks, endorsed a report
calling for a shovel that would hold 14^ pounds.

This sheet [said Taylor] came in for fixing a day's work for hand-
h'ng rice coal, signed by Gantt. Gantt is a very hot-tempered fellow.
I endorsed under his name: " Don't bring any more damn fool reports
to me." I knew that would fetch its result.

He came back to my desk about three or four days afterward and
sat opposite me. He said: " I came about that damn fool report."

I said: " Gantt, I suppose you know why I wrote that on your
report."

"You mean that I fixed a 14^ pound shovel."

" That is it."

He said: " I want you to know that the damn fool is sitting on the
other side of the desk."

" Why? "

" Perhaps you don't know you can't buy a shovel, that there is no
shovel catalogued, that will handle over 14^ pounds of rice coal."

I said: " Yes? You would be damn fool enough, would you, to fix
a task that would last perhaps for twenty years at 14^ pounds, when
you know 21^ pounds can be done, rather than pay $i,ooo for fifty
shovels to be made? You could afford to pay any price for shovels
so as to get one that will hold 21 pounds. Isn't that perfectly clear? "

He said: " You can't get them."

I said: " Maybe you can or cannot, but we are going to get them
all right. We are going to have this price fixed on the basis of 21
pounds. Furthermore, I will bet you can get them in Philadelphia."
And we went right down to Philadelphia where we had no difficulty
in finding them in stock.

TAYLOR AND HIS ASSISTANTS 73

It was Taylor's object in telling these stories in his later
years to illustrate the " enormous difference " between the
task idea in management and the " idea of initiative plus in-
centive." No matter what incentive were given for their
initiative, how could any of those shovelers have discovered
what was the proper-size shovel or, knowing it, could have
obtained it?

With the task idea, men no longer are submerged in gangs,
but are individualized. To illustrate how this works out, Tay-
lor told at Boxly of what happened when an agent for a
Pittsburgh steel works took from him some of his specially-
trained ore shovelers. And here is a particularly fine example
of his gift for the dramatic and incidentally of the workings
of his shrewd- Yankee mind.

Each of the ore shovelers at Bethlehem had a separate car
to unload each day, and his wages depended upon his own
personal exertion. Much of the ore they handled came from
the Lake Superior region, and the same ore was delivered in
Pittsburgh and in Bethlehem in exactly similar cars. There
was a shortage of ore handlers in Pittsburgh, and the reputa-
tion of the Bethlehem men had spread.

So [said Taylor] the Pittsburgh fellows thought they did a very
smart thing when they sent an agent down to employ our men at a
higher rate. I was away at the time. The man who was at the head
of our laboring men was a college fellow and had two assistants
under him.

This fellow came to me and said: " We are up against this thing.
A Pittsburgh man is here, and for exactly the same job we are paying
our men 3.2 cents a ton he offers 4.9 cents a ton. What am I going
to say to them? I have merely told them to wait until you got back.
We will have to raise prices surely."

I said: " No; we will let every one of them go. Don't wait for the
Pittsburgh fellow to get our men. Go to every good man in your
gang and tell him: 'There is a fellow here from Pittsburgh. He

74 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

offers you men a price we cannot give, 4.9 cents. Don't you think
you had better go and see him? We don't want to lose you. We
think the world of you, but here is this fellow. We believe in high-
priced men. If you can get more money in Pittsburgh than here, you
want to think it over. You had better go and see that fellow.' "

" We will lose all our men," I was told.

I said: " I don't care if we lose them all. We will not pay more
than that a ton."

By going to the men and telling them individually that they had
better see the Pittsburgh fellow, we kept their confidence and showed
them we were not fools. We knew the Pittsburgh fellow would
see them anyway. We might as well get the credit of letting them
know we were looking after their interest.

In six weeks those men came back from Pittsburgh where they had
4.9 cents a ton to do the same job again on which we offered them
3.2 cents. Why? I asked one of them into my office. Very few
could talk English. There were a few from Ireland and other places.

I said: " Mike, what did you fellows come back here for? "

He said: " Mr. Taylor, we went out there and they put me and Jim
in a car with ten other fellows, twelve of us in the car. Did you ever
hear of such a thing? "

I said: " Yes, Mike, I have heard of it."

He said: " This is what they did. They put us in a car with ten
other fellows. Me and Jim started to shovel ore to beat the band.
A little bugger was alongside of me. After I had been going half
an hour I said to him: ' If you don't shovel ore out of this car faster
than that, we will get no money out of it.' He said: ' Who in hell
are you? ' I said: ' We've got to earn money. If you don't shovel
faster than that we will get no money.' He said: ' Keep your damned
mouth shut or I'll throw you off the car.' I could have spit on the
bugger and drowned him, but there was ten of them there to two of
us. I looked around. Jim and me watched that bugger. Every
time he throwed a shovel off we would throw one off, and we never
throwed a shovel that that fellow would not throw one. At the end
of two weeks we got less money than we got here."

I said: " What did you do then? "

TAYLOR AND HIS ASSISTANTS 75

" Well, we got together then, us Bethlehem fellows, and me and
Jim went in to see the boss and said : ' We've come in to see you. We
are those fellows from Bethlehem. We want a car to ourselves.' He
said: ' Who in hell are you? ' I said: * We are the fellows that came
here from Bethlehem. We can't shovel ore here and make money.
We want a car to ourselves.' He said: ' Get to hell out of this. Don't
come here minding my business.' We went back to the car and the
next two weeks got no more money than we did the first. Then
Jim writes pretty well, and he wrote a letter to know whether we
could come back. Mr. Wadleigh says, ' Come along,' and the whole
lot of us are here."

What is the meaning of that? Men will not do anything like one-
half the work if they are herded together as they will when working
in pairs or singly. If at Pittsburgh they had put the same Bethlehem
men, twelve of them, on a car, every one of them would have fallen
down. If one man stops to spit on his hands, another begins to look
at him and think, " That bugger is loafing. I will keep my eye on
him. He is not doing as much as I do." He slows down to him.
Pretty soon it is a match to see who goes slowest.

In Shof Management ^ he said that the larger part of the
transfer of the Bethlehem yard labor from day work to piece
work was made during the last six months of his stay with
this company. " The study of unit times for the yard labor
took practically the time of two trained men for two years."
However, " this time study was greatly delayed by having
successively the two leading men who had been trained to
the work leave because they were offered much larger salaries
elsewhere." Repeatedly but mostly in vain Taylor appealed
to the company to pay his men salaries that would keep pace
with their development. Also in Shof Management ^ he said:

When the writer left the steel works, the Bethlehem piece workers
were the finest body of picked laborers that he has ever seen together.
They were practically all first-class men, because in each case the task

1 p. SI. ^ p. 54-

76 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

which they were called upon to perform was such that only a first-
class man could do it. The tasks were all purposely so severe that
not more than one out of five laborers (perhaps even a smaller per-
centage than this) could keep up.

This paragraph was made extensive use of by his opponents.
When he had a chance to explain it, while testifying before
the Special House Committee, he said:

I have found that an illustration often furnishes the most con-
vincing form of definition. I want therefore to define what I mean
by the words " first-class " through an illustration. To do so I am
going to again use " horses " as an illustration, because every one of
us knows a good deal about the capacity of horses, while there are
very few people who have made a sufficient study of men to have the
same kind of knowledge about men that we all have about horses.
Now, if you have a stable, say, in the city of Washington, containing
300 or 400 horses, you will have in that stable a certain number of
horses which are intended especially for hauling coal wagons. You
will have a certain number of other horses intended especially to
haul grocery wagons; you will have a certain number of trotting
horses; a certain number of saddle horses — of pleasure horses, and
of ponies in that stable.

Now, what I mean by a " first-class " horse to haul a coal wagon
is something very simple and plain. We will all agree that a good,
big dray horse is a " first-class " horse to haul a coal wagon (a horse,
for instance, of the type of a Percheron). If, however, you live in
a small town and have a small stable of horses, in many cases you
may not have enough dray horses in your stable to haul your coal
wagons, and you will have to use grocery-wagon horses and grocery
wagons to haul your coal in; and yet we all know that a grocery-
wagon horse is not a " first-class " horse for hauling coal, and we
all know that a grocery wagon is not a first-class wagon to carry
coal in; but times come when we have to use a second-class horse
and wagon, although we know that there is something better. It
may be necessary even at times to haul coal with a trotting horse, and
you may have to put your coal in a buggy under certain circumstances.

TAYLOR AND HIS ASSISTANTS 77

But we all know that a trotting horse or a grocery horse is not a
" first-class " horse for hauling coal. In the same way we know
that a big dray horse is not a " first-class " horse for hauling a grocery
wagon, nor is a grocery-wagon horse first class for hauling a buggy,
and so on right down the line.

Now, what I mean by " first-class " men is set before you by what I
mean by " first-class " horses. I mean that there are big, powerful
men suited to heavy work, just as dray horses are suited to the coal
wagon, and I would not use a man who would be " first class " for this
heavy work to do light work for which he would be second class, and
which could be done just as well by a boy who is first class for this
work, and vice versa.

What I want to make clear is that each type of man is " first class "
at some kind of work, and if you will hunt far enough you will find
some kind of work that is suited to him. But if you insist, as some
people in this community are insisting (to use the illustration of horses
again), that a task — say, a load of coal — shall be made so light
that a pony can haul it, then you are doing a fool thing, for you are
substituting a second-class animal (or man) to do work which mani-
festly should be done by a " first-class " animal (or man). And that
is what I mean by the term " first-class man."

It would appear that the main result of the foregoing ex-
planation by Taylor was to cause people to denounce him
for the indignity he had put upon workingmen in " comparing
them to horses." Perhaps the present reader will be able
to see that the comparison was not to but with. This aside,
Taylor's statement about purposely making the tasks of the
yard laborers so severe that " not more than one out of five
could keep up " continued for years to be thrust at the men
who appeared at public hearings to testify on behalf of science
in management. It was thrust at Henry R. Towne when, in
1 9 1 6, a year after Taylor's death, he was testifying before the
Labor Committee of the House of Representatives. Getting
permission to "translate" it, Mr. Towne said:

78 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Mr. Taylor was a great friend of mine, and I regard him as
having done more as an American engineer in a generation to leave
an impress, which will last for all time, in founding a new system
than any other man; but he had his faults like the rest of us, and
one of them was a very intense temperament, and as a result of that,
a habit of overstatement. He exaggerates, unconsciously but un-
avoidably, because he is so full of his subject and so intense.

Now what was done there was undoubtedly to select the men most
fit for this heavy labor work, lifting*, and to shift the unfit ones
to something they were better fitted for.

Intensely proud of his " finest body of picked laborers,"
Taylor boasted of them much as the manager of a football or
baseball team might boast that the men he had selected and
trained could " lick all creation." It is certain that, though
what he did with the Bethlehem yard labor was designed to save
the company almost $8o,000 a year, his pride in his teams
of pig-iron handlers and coal and ore shovelers was not shared
by any of the chiefs of that company. Even when he, in
collaboration with Maunsel White, made the discovery which
was the sensation of the industrial world here and abroad and
saved the company a prospective expenditure of at least a
million dollars, none of the men high up in that company
had sufficient pride in it to offer him a word of congratulation.

CHAPTER VII

THE DISCOVERY THAT LED TO
HIGH-SPEED STEEL

WHILE the yard was being systemized under his
general direction, he was giving most of his per-
sonal attention to the large machine shop. And
as we have said, he was there " at once confronted with that
question which, to a large extent, he had been compelled to
leave unsettled at Cramp's — the question as to which make
of self -hardening steel then on the market was the. best to
adopt as a shop standard." The experiments at Bethlehem
planned to settle this question were started by him in the latter
part of the summer of 1898. On October 23, Maunsel White
joined him in this work. Just eight days later came the dis-
covery that led to the development of high-speed steel. And
of all the episodes of Taylor's flaming career, this is the most
strange and curious.

It has been authoritatively said of high-speed steel that
it has " more than doubled the capacity of every machine
shop in the world, not only cutting in half the capital to be
invested in tools to accomplish a given volume of work, but
also doubling the efficiency of every workman employed in
the cutting of metals." So much as a matter of course is
high-speed steel now taken in machine shops everywhere that
its absence would be almost inconceivable. Yet if you should
ask the most intelligent and experienced mechanic of your
acquaintance just what the discovery was that brought in
high-speed steel, or what this steel essentially is, the chances

79

8o FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

all are that he would be entirely stumped. Even the average
engineer might find it difficult to answer such questions.

Should we turn to the Encyclopedia Brltannica^ held in
English-speaking countries to be a first-rate authority on things
in general, we should not get much light on these questions
either. In the Eleventh Edition of this work (published in
191 1, and the latest at this writing), we find tool steels treated
in an article on the Tool by Joseph G. Horner, an English
mechanical engineer. The author first speaks of the old car-
bon steel which had been in use since time immemorial, and
then refers to Mushet steel, or the original self-hardening
steel which came into use in consequence of the discovery
made in the i86o's by the Englishman, Robert Mushet, of
the value of adding tungsten to the chemical ingredients.^

The third kind of steel [he continues] is termed high-sfeedj be-
cause much higher cutting speeds are practical with these than with
other steels. Tools made of them are hardened in a blast of cold
air. The controlhng elements are numerous and vary in the practice
of different manufacturers, to render the tools adaptable to cutting
various classes of metals and alloys. Tungsten is the principal con-
trolling element, but chromium is essential and molybdenum and
vanadium are often found of value. The steels are forged at a
yellow tint, equal to about 1,850 degrees Fahr. They are raised
to a white heat for hardening, and cooled in an air blast to a bright
red. They are then often quenched in a bath of oil.

The first public demonstration of the capacities of high speed
steel was made at the Paris Exposition of 1900.

Here is not a word as to how, when, or where high-speed
steel first came into use, and no mention of any man or men
to whom credit should be given for any discovery or inven-
tion in this connection. We shall presently see, however,

^ Anyone interested in checking them up will find that the statements of
this Britannica writer as to the heat treatment of carbon steel and Mushet
steel are far from being in accord with what was found to be the case by
Taylor and White as will hereinafter be brought out.

DISCOVERY OF HIGH-SPEED STEEL 8i

that in view of the fact that the author was an English
engineer and that he wrote for an English publication, it was
something for him to admit even that high-speed steel first
was demonstrated at the Paris Exposition of 1 900, this demon-
stration having been the exhibit of none other than the Bethle-
hem Steel Company of the U. S. A.

For himself Taylor never did anything to exploit his
achievement in bringing about high-speed steel. In his mind
this discovery ultimately took rank simply as an incident in
his general metal-cutting investigation and one of far less
importance than the development of the slide rule. Further-
more, he regarded his whole metal-cutting investigation much
as he regarded all of his work in the accounting field j that
is, as subservient to the task he imposed on himself of demon-
strating that management could be reduced to an art based
on scientific principles. Undoubtedly his sense of relative
values here was eminently just 5 nevertheless, we must feel
that the high-speed steel discovery, taken by itself, is of suf-
ficient importance to warrant our setting forth all the facts
concerning it that now are available.

The first thing, of course, is to make clear the exact nature
of high-speed steel and of the discovery that led to it and
this we can arrive at best through Taylor's own words.

There exists in the minds of most users of these [high-speed]
tools a serious misapprehension both as to the nature of the invention
and also as to that property in high speed tools which chiefly gives
them their value. Perhaps at least four out of five writers upon the
subject of high speed tools speaks of the " discovery " or " introduc-
tion of high speed tools," as though our invention consisted in the
discovery of a tool steel new in its chemical composition. The fact
is, however, that tool steel of excellent quality for making high speed
tools existed and was in common use several years before our dis-
covery was made.^

^ On the Art of Cutting Metals y p. 222.

82 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Just previous to this in his paper Taylor wrote: "Be-
tween 1885 and 1895, a few manufacturers of tool steel
started to imitate the Mushet steel, and in the latter part of
this period it was discovered that by substituting chromium for
manganese in combination with tungsten a good self-harden-
ing or air-hardening tool could be made." This is the steel —
that of the chromium-tungsten family — to which Taylor
referred as being " of excellent quality for making high speed
tools." '

Now, when metal cuts metal, the metal that does the cut-
ting must, of course, be many times harder than the metal which
is cut. And the fact is that, regardless of its chemical com-
position, the steel that comes from the forge is too soft for
tools. The hardness needed to make it do work as a cutting
tool is put into it by heating it up and then cooling it. The
old carbon steel was cooled by plunging it in water, whereas
we have seen that steel of the tungsten type becomes hard
when left to cool in the air, and this also is true of chromium-
tungsten steel. Incidentally it may be mentioned that all
steel that thus is hardened is too brittle for use as tools, and so
the tools are subjected to a second heating of a lesser degree
for the purpose of softening and at the same time toughening
them, this latter process being that called tempering.

" The two operations of hardening and temperihg imple-
ments made from tool steel," said Taylor, " are by no means
simple. They have been the subject of a vast amount of
experimenting and investigation for many years and in them-
selves constitute whole trades." In the case of the old car-
bon steel, one of the chief difficulties in hardening is due to
the fact that each piece of steel, depending on its chemical
composition (regardless of its general type, one piece of steel
will vary somewhat from another), " has a particular tempera-

^ Mushet steel was manufactured solely by the English firm of Osborne &
Company, whereas chromium-tungsten steels were made by various American
firms, notably Midvale.

DISCOVERY OF HIGH-SPEED STEEL 83

ture at which a radical change takes place in the condition
of the carbon which is contained in it." This temperature is
known as the " refining point," " critical point," or " point
of recalescence." And, "in order to obtain the best results
in hardening, the steel should be uniformly heated to slightly
above this critical point. If heated below the critical point,
it fails to harden when plunged into water. On the other
hand, the higher the temperature to which it is heated above
the critical point, the coarser will be the grain and the weaker
and the more brittle it will become after being plunged into
water. This overheating of carbon steel tools to tempera-
tures too high above the critical point has been in the past
perhaps the most frequent cause of their failure."^

Now, what was the critical temperature of the old carbon
steel? Taylor's statement on this very important point is
that the hardening of tools made of carbon steel " is done by
heating them to temperatures in accordance with their carbon
contents, varying between a dark and a bright cherry red,
say, from 1,350 degrees Fahr. (735 degrees Cent.) up to
1,550 degrees Fahr. (845 degrees Cent.)."^

In this connection let us recall that the old carbon tools
continued in general use until Taylor made his discovery
about Mushet steel while experimenting at Cramp's in 1894.
This discovery was not only that tools made of Mushet steel
could be run at a much higher speed when water was poured
on them, but also that this steel was much more adapted for
cutting soft metal than for cutting hard, and that therefore,
instead of being reserved, as then was the custom, for extra
hard pieces of metal only, it " should be used daily through-
out the shop on all ordinary work in place of carbon steel
tools." ^ Thus Taylor said that "up to 1894 may be called
the era of carbon tools."* And immediately he added:

^ On the Art of Cutting Metals, pp. 218, and 214.

2 Ib'td., p, 218.

^ On the Art of Cutting Metals, p. 221. * Ibii., p. 222.

84 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

"From 1894 to 1900, when high-speed cutting tools, treated
by the Taylor-White process, were exhibited at the Paris Ex-
position, may be called the era of Mushet or self-hardening
tools."

As the Mushet or tungsten steel came into general use,
and incidentally, in this country, the steels of the chromium-
tungsten family, it was generally assumed, not unnaturally,
that the critical temperature of carbon steel (from 1,350 to
1,500 degrees Fahr.) applied to the newer steels also. Nor
was this the limit of the assumption. In the case of the old
carbon steel it universally had been found that, once a tool
had been " burnt " or broken down by heating it beyond
1,500 degrees, there was no subsequent heat treatment that
would restore it to usable condition, and, again not unnatu-
rally, it was assumed that this, too, applied to the newer steels.

And this brings us to the essence of the discovery Taylor
made in collaboration with White at Bethlehem in 1898:
these experimenters found that while it was true that tools
made of the chromium-tungsten type which then prevailed
were ruined when subjected to a temperature greater than about
1,500 degrees Fahr. and that they continued to be ruined when
subjected to a heat up to about 1,725 degrees, their cutting
efficiency was progressively increased when they were sub-
jected to a heat greater than 1,725 degrees; the improvement
being marked above the temperature of 1,850 degrees, and
the greatest improvement taking -place just before the m^elting
pointy or at the ^naximum temperature to which it was possible
to bring the steel without destroying it.

Again we quote Taylor:

A second misapprehension exists on the part of most people as to
the nature of that property which enables the " high speed " tools to
be run at their high speeds. Heating these tools (in a revolutionary
manner) up close to their melting point is quite commonly referred
to by writers on this subject as " hardening " the tools. In point of

DISCOVERY OF HIGH-SPEED STEEL 85

fact the high speed tools at their very hardest are little, if any,
harder than the carbon tools, or the old-fashioned self-hardening
tools, and the quality of hardness is not that which enables them to
run at very high speed.

Heating chromium-tungsten tools close to the melting point does
not give them a degree of hardness vi^hich is unusual in tools, but
it does give them the entirely new and extraordinary property of
retaining what hardness they have, even after the tool has been heated
up in use through the pressure and friction of the chip, until it is
almost, or quite, red hot. This new property in high speed tools
has been very appropriately named " red hardness," because the tool
maintains its cutting edge sufficiently sharp and hard to cut steel
even after its nose is red hoty and because in many cases it heats up
the chip or shaving which it is cutting until the portions of the chip
which are exposed to the friction of the tool become red hot.^

It is true that if it had not been for the discoveries about
the values of tungsten and chromium, there could have been
no such thing as high-speed steel. It is true also that, follow-
ing their heat-treatment discovery in 1898, Taylor and White
made extensive experiments in the chemical composition of
tool steel, and that these resulted in chemical discoveries, such
as the value of increasing the percentage of tungsten and
reducing the percentage of carbon, that materially increased
the efficiency of the high-speed tools. And it is true, further-
more, that after the experiments of Taylor and White, the
efficiency of high-speed tools again was increased by other
changes in the chemical composition of tool steel. At the
same time, the fact remains that the " red hardness " which
is the essential property of high-speed steel is due to these
changes in chemical composition only in the sense that they
fermit of its being put into the steel. The red hardness is
directly due, not to the chemistry of the steel, but to the
heat treatment. And the rationale of his heat treatment will

^ 0« the Art of Cutting Metals, p. 223.

86 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

be apparent when it is stated that the tool must be treated
at a temperature at least as high as that which will be gener-
ated by the speed at which the tool is run.

And now comes a very curious feature of this case.

When Taylor and White, after extensive experimenting,
had perfected their revolutionary process of hardening tool
steel, they obtained two patents covering it. These patents
they sold in 1900 to the Bethlehem Steel Company. Three
years later this company brought suit for infringement of the
patents against the Niles-Bement-Pond Company, a New
Jersey concern manufacturing machine-tools. To the assist-
ance of the Niles-Bement-Pond Company came many other
of the manufacturers who, if the patents were sustained,
would be compelled to pay royalties to the Bethlehem Com-
pany, or else operate under the severe handicap of being un-
able to participate in the use of high-speed steel. Not only
this, but, seeing their big business in the United States
threatened, all the tool-steel manufacturers of Sheffield,
England, combined to raise a large fund to help defend the
suit, and they sent over here a formidable array of experts
or reputed experts, including members of the faculty of the
University of Sheffield. It practically was the Bethlehem
Steel Company against the rest of the world of tool-steel
users and tool-steel manufacturers. For five years the case
dragged out a weary length j the testimony taken coming to
fill more than 2,000 printed pages.

It would appear that the opponents of the Bethlehem Com-
pany made about every allegation they could think of as being
likely to influence the court in their favor. In part the
defense was that high-speed steel was produced not so much
by any heat treatment as by the chemical composition of the
steel, and that if any special heat treatment was needed, the
facts about it were concealed in the Taylor-White patents.
Attacks also were made on the personal honor of the men,

DISCOVERY OF HIGH-SPEED STEEL 87

including Taylor, who testified for the Bethlehem Company.
In the main, however, the defense was that there was no
novelty in the Taylor-White heat treatment j men, principally
Englishmen, taking the stand almost in serried ranks to testify
that tool steel often had been hardened and tempered in this
way before. And this defense being sustained by the court,
the Taylor- White patents were knocked out.

With the technicalities of patent law and of court pro-
cedure we here have no concern. All we are concerned with
are such facts as these : that the results produced by the Taylor-
White heat treatment of tool steel immediately became the
sensation of the industrial world, and incidentally the scien-
tific, throughout North and South America, Europe, Aus-
tralia, and South Africa, with Japan following a little laterj
that there is no evidence that any technical journal, here or
abroad, important or unimportant, ever attempted to deny
that Taylor and White had made a real discovery and had
developed a highly novel heat treatment j that at the Paris
Exposition where their discovery was exhibited they received
personal gold medals for itj and that in this same year of
1900 the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, after due in-
vestigation of this discovery by a committee of experts, awarded
Taylor the Elliot Cresson gold medal.

Before closing this chapter it should be brought out, for
the light it will throw on this curious case in general, and es-
pecially on things connected with it still to appear, that a
difficulty is involved in the statements here made to the
general effect that, previous to the Taylor-White experiments,
! a temperature of about 1,500 degrees was universally accepted
as the one beyond which tools could not be heated without ruin-
ing them. This difficulty arises from the fact that up to 1898
pyrometers such as invented by Professor Henri Le Chatelier,
by means of which forging temperatures are accurately
measured, were not in general use in the machine shops of

88 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

the world. What the situation then was in this respect is
well described in the brief prepared by counsel for the Bethle-
hem Company in the patent litigation, this description being
based on the testimony of Taylor:

Practically the way in which information was communicated from
man to man with regard to the heating of tool steels in making and
treating tools prior to the Taylor-White invention, was by a visual
demonstration. One smith taught another, and all of the tool
steel makers, especially those introducing new steels, employed sales-
men whose chief occupation was to go from shop to shop and show
the smiths how to treat their steels to obtain what they considered
to be their maximum efficiency in metal cutting tools. This is a
fairly practical mode of instruction, because tool steels when heated
hot enough to be forged or hardened in the old sense, are luminous,
and the appearance of the light they give off varies with the tempera-
ture. The difference between the luminosity at one temperature
and another is not only in intensity but also, to a certain extent, in
a visual impression resembling that produced by color; the first
luminous appearance being distinctly of a dull red color and then,
as the temperature increases, the red partakes more and more of a
yellow until it finally disappears and the yellow merges into white
or a pure colorless luminosity, at the melting point. Now in every
shop the particular temperatures considered critical were recognized
by the smith by the luminous appearance of the steel at these tempera-
tures, and these luminous appearances received particular color names
which were well understood and had a very definite meaning to the
smiths employed in the same shops, but those names might and did
differ very much in different shops.

As tool smiths went from shop to shop there was doubtless a
tendency toward uniformity in the color nomenclature relating to
the heats in most common usage and, no doubt, the missionary efforts
of the salesmen tool-smiths employed by the tool steel makers must
have had a tendency toward unifying the color nomenclature at the
shops which they visited, so that there was bound to be some approxi-
mation to uniformity in the American, the British, the German, and
the French shops, but as the missionary smiths practically confined

DISCOVERY OF HIGH-SPEED STEEL 89

their efforts to their own countries, there was no particular reason
why there should be an approximation to uniformity in the nomen-
clature of the different countries. . . . The facts developed in this
record show clearly, we think, that the divergence in color nomen-
clature was, and is, and probably always will be, so great that any
effort to tabulate and make a scale of such colors which will have
real value will be futile. . . . The hopelessness of the task arises
from the fact that the color names in use are purely conventional
and have a very remote relationship to the visual appearance which
they attempt to describe.

No argument is needed to prove the advantage which this
uncertain and unreliable color nomenclature for temperatures
gave to anyone whose interests it would serve to mix up the
issue when it came to determining what was the common prac-
tice as regards the heating of tools previous to the Taylor-
White experiments. We take it, however, that these are the
facts:

(i) The first appearance of color in heated steel is un-
mistakable. (2) The color which first appears impresses
everyone as a kind of red. (3) This first appearance of color
in the form of red is shown by accurate tests with a pyrometer
to indicate a temperature approaching that of 1,500 degrees
Fahr. (4) That what was commonly called, at least in the
north Atlantic industrial district of this country, a bright
cherry red indicated a temperature of from 1,500 to 1,550
degrees. (5) That, previous to the Taylor- White experiments
beginning in 1898, every maker of tool steel here and abroad
without exception, and regardless of the chemical composition
of his steel, issued warnings to the users of his steel not to
overheat itj these warnings either being in writing, as on the
label attached to the steel, or being given by word of mouth
through the salesman, usually both. (6) That overheating
invariably was considered the adding of heat after the first
appearance of color in the steel had begun to assume bright-

90 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

ness or brilliance. (7) That there was a good reason why
such warnings had been issued, inasmuch as the Taylor-White
experiments demonstrated that tool steel of the various chem-
ical compositions then on the market began to lose its cutting
efficiency as it was heated beyond about 1,520 degrees.

From all this it should clearly appear that the essence of
the situation was frankly stated in an article published in the
American journal. The Industrial World, and written by E.
T. Clarage, formerly a salesman for the Crescent Steel Com-
pany, and then the president of the Columbia Tool Steel Com-
pany. Speaking of the Taylor- White invention and its effect
on the trade, he said:

You see, we steel men had gone around for the last twenty years
or so telling people to use low heats on all their steels, and this
shows how little the steel makers themselves knew. We did not
know that the rules governing the use of straight carbon steels
might be directly contrary to what these tungsten steels required,
but such seems to be the case.

In fine, it was another and exceptionally striking example
of the soporific power of tradition, or of the way customs
have of persisting after changed conditions have made them
untenable.

CHAPTER VIII

HOW THE DISCOVERY WAS MADE

IT OF course was a bitter pill for the manufacturers and
salesmen of tool steel to have to acknowledge that their
innumerable warnings against overheating were all a mis-
take. It was especially bitter for the English manufacturers,
and more particularly for the men of Sheffield, where iron
had been smelted as far back as the Norman conquest, and
where a town had grown up that became famous for its steel
a full century before Christopher Columbus adventured across
the Atlantic. They have to follow after an American! Some
big men in England, as in the case of Sir Robert Hadfield,
the metallurgical engineer, were open and generous in their
acknowledgment; but the way that English makers and also
users of tool steel took it as a group must be regarded as a
melancholy exhibition of the sportsmanship so characteristic
of their race. For the chorus that arose from them was that
the Taylor- White discovery, made at the plant of the Bethle-
hem Steel Company in the U. S. A., was all due to a lucky
chance happening, a mere accident. Originating in England,
this statement became bandied about here also, while the be-
lief persists to this day.

In the sense that Taylor most certainly did not design or
plan to make the discovery that led to high-speed steel, his
most ardent champions can cheerfully admit that this dis-
covery was accidental indeed. But it is to be observed that
there are accidents and accidents. First, those that befall a
person purely through chance. Second, those that he has put
himself in the way of, that are a direct result of some course

91

92 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

he has been Intentionally and steadfastly pursuing. When
they dubbed Taylor's high-speed steel discovery a piece of
luck, we indeed have a striking example of the principle that
the seemingly lucky often really is a reward for the virtue
of persistence. And in this connection the reader is referred
back to the quotation from Emerson at the beginning of this
book. These are words that could not bear more directly on the
case of Taylor had they been written with him in mind.

Fortunately for the record, the principal facts as to how
the high-speed steel discovery was made were brought out
In the testimony given by Taylor when, in 1908, he appeared
as a witness In that patent suit. And here again, entombed
in an official tome, we find a story of lively Interest.

In beginning his testimony, Taylor said:

I came to the Bethlehem Steel Company for the purpose of re-
organizing their system of management and the practical administra-
tion of their various departments and shops during the spring of 1898.

In the organization of a machine shop one of the very most
important elements is the selection of the two or three types of
tool steel required for economically doing the work of the shop.
Having in the year 1895 [^^ Cramp's] narrowed down the choice
of the then existing brands of air-hardened tool steel to three or
four specially good brands, I wished, before establishing the stand-
ards for tool steel for the Bethlehem Machine Shops, to investigate
the other makes of self -hardening tool steel which might have been
developed between the years 1895 and 1898. In order to test tools
made from these steels, a large and powerful lathe . . . [elec-
trically-driven] was fitted up in the largest machine shop of the
Bethlehem Company. This lathe was started during the latter part of
the summer of 1898, and after quite a number of experiments I
recommended for adoption, as a standard for the air-hardening or
self-hardening tools of the Bethlehem Steel Company, the air-hard-
ening tool steel which was furnished us at that time by the Midvale
Steel Company. . . .

In order to prove to the various superintendents, foremen and

HOW DISCOVERY WAS MADE 93

managers of the different shops and departments of the Bethlehem
Steel Company that the Midvale tool steel, above referred to, was
the most satisfactory of all the brands tried, a formal exhibition or
test was planned to which all of the important men of the type
referred to were invited to be present. For the purposes of this test
four tools were ordered to be made in the smith shop from a fresh
bar of Midvale Steel and ground to the proper shapes. These tools
were then run in competition, as it were, in the presence of these
men with all of the other brands which had proved themselves in
our experiments worthy of consideration, and much to my humiliation
the four Midvale tools carefully prepared for this exhibition proved
to be the very worst of all those that were tried.

I, of course, was of the opinion that being a newcomer in the
Bethlehem Steel Company the blacksmiths who made these tools had
overheated or burnt them for the purpose either of playing a joke
on me, or, possibly even, of discrediting me in my work.

After a careful investigation, however, the evidence indicated that
these tools had been forged by the smiths at night and that they had
taken very special care not to overheat them. I was told that for
the reason that I had personally worked with these smiths, and had
not put on lugs, that the smiths had taken very special care to forge
these tools without the danger of overheating, and, in fact, that
they had taken about twenty-two heats at a very low forging tempera-
ture in making each of the tools.

This investigation left me in very considerable doubt as to how the
tools had been ruined.

There was no question that they had been ruined.

In my experiments with this same brand of tool steel, in 1894
and 1895, while with the Cramp Shipbuilding Company, I had found
that they gave a very high efficiency and high cutting speeds if heated
during the making and dressing and as a final heat treatment to a
bright cherry red. I had found to my cost, as was well known to all
users of this steel, that if heated slightly beyond a bright cherry red
these tools were burned, and thereby ruined, and that no subsequent
heat treatment, which was at that time known to anyone, could be
found which would restore these tools to their original good condition.

94 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Later on in their experiments at Bethlehem, Taylor and
White discovered that the disappointment Taylor had ex-
perienced with the four Midvale tools was only what might
have been expected of tools made of any of the chromium-
tungsten steels then being manufactured and sold. In con-
nection with his testimony, Taylor produced a diagram show-
ing in detail the experiments he and White had made with
three tools representing three different brands of chromium-
tungsten steel. And in explaining this diagram, he testified
to facts that not only serve to explain his failure with the
Midvale tools, but have much historical interest:

Reviewing again briefly the facts connected with all three of
these typical tools [those representing three different brands of chro-
mium-tungsten steel], they all have, under the old system of heating
in common use prior to our discovery, a comparatively narrow range of
highest efficiency, somewhere about, or a little beyond, the bright
cherry red heat. This range of highest efficiency is narrow, the
tools running at slower cutting speeds when heated less hot than this
range, and also running at slower cutting speeds when heated even
slightly beyond this range of temperatures.

There is, however, one most important fact which is not shown
on this diagram, namely, that tools which once have been heated
beyond this range of highest efficiency and which belong to the
chromium-tungsten group could never again be restored to their
highest efficiency by any heat treatment that was then known. This
overheating of the tools was called by the various names of over-
heating, burning, ruining in the fire, and breaking down, and was the
subject of more warnings and recommendations on the part of those
who sold tool steels of this class, and who were sent to the various
smith shops in the country by the makers of these steels, than any other
element.

On the other hand, tools that were treated at a lower heat than this
narrow range of maximum efficiency were in no way permanently
injured by such heating. Tools which had been heated too low could

HOW DISCOVERY WAS MADE 95

be given their highest efficiency merely by re-heating to the bright
cherry red range.

It hardly needs to be pointed out that a study of the diagram
shows the marked increase in the efficiency of all these tools when
heated according to the recommendation in our patents to tempera-
tures close to the melting point.

In this connection it is proper to state that the steels belonging
to the chromium-tungsten group, when properly heated to this narrow
bright cherry red range, prior to our invention, gave higher cutting
speeds than the tools of the Mushet type of chemical composition;
yet, in spite of this fact, I am safe in saying that up to the time of
our invention more than half of the self-hardening tools to be found
in machine shops of this country were of the Mushet make.

There are two fundamental reasons for this extraordinary fact,
namely, that an English tool steel maker should even in this country
be able to sell more steel than all of the American or other foreign
makers combined. First: The Mushet tools, when heated in the
smith shop, had nearly the same efficiency when they were heated
anywhere along the line between 1, 200 degrees Fahr. and their best
forging temperature of a bright cherry red, or about 1,500 degrees,
so that underheating would not diminish their efficiency. On the other
hand, these Mushet tools, if overheated, were burned and ruined
in such a manner that the ruined nose of the tool never got out of
the smith shop. I will show through later experiments that it was
impossible to forge a Mushet tool at a heat as high as 1,667 degrees
Fahr. At this temperature, and even considerably below it, Mushet
tools when struck with a sledge in the smith shop broke right off,
and, in most cases, crumbled up into pieces whose grain had a black,
coarse, sandy appearance.

Now the significance of these two facts, taken together is that
neither through overheating or underheating of Mushet steel were
tools likely to get into the machine shop with any great lack of uni-
formity, and, as I have before said, uniformity in the cutting proper-
ties of tools is perhaps the very first requisite. At any rate, this
uniformity in the Mushet tools, even although their cutting speeds
were materially lower than those of the chromium-tungsten tools,
when treated at their very best, was a factor of sufficient moment to

96 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

give Osborne & Company of England, the makers of the Mushet
steel, at least half of the air-hardening tool steel trade of this
country.

The fact that the narrow range of highest efficiency of chro-
mium-tungsten tools was so close to the disastrous breaking down
or burning temperature also makes it clear why blacksmiths, after
overheating their chromium-tungsten tools, and in this way ruining
them a few times, were careful to avoid those burning or breaking
down temperatures, and in doing so they heated the tools to tem-
peratures below their small range of maximum efficiency. This
treatment filled the shop with tools on the whole considerably less
efficient even than the Mushet tools. Now, it will be recalled by
all those who have worked practically in machine shops in which
tools were made of chromium-tungsten steels that before the year
1898 almost every old experienced machinist had succeeded in select-
ing from the tools that were in the shop one particular tool which
he kept practically as his individual personal property. He either
locked it up in his closet or hid it in a hole in the floor, or some-
where else, and when he had a particularly difficult job to do pro-
duced this choice tool, and did the trick.

Now, these few choice tools were those that had been heated by
the blacksmith to within the narrow range of temperatures of maxi-
mum efficiency of this particular class of tools, and it was largely
due to the maker's mark on these special tools that the makers of
chromium-tungsten steels were able to obtain any foothold to speak
of in the shops, as against the Mushet steel. The machinist who
possessed this rara avis in the tool family swore by that particular
brand of tool steel, and induced his foreman to place orders for
more of the stuff, only, in most cases, to be disappointed at what
they called the lack of uniformity in that tool steel. Neither they
nor the blacksmith in most cases ever realized the existence of this
very narrow range of temperatures of maximum efficiency.

It appears from this that the failure with the four Midvale
chromium-tungsten tools might have been due to their hav-
ing been underheated by the smiths in their desire to avoid
overheating them. But Taylor, although he at this time —

HOW DISCOVERY WAS MADE 97

that is, in October, 1898 — did not have the familiarity with
the erratic qualities of the old chromium-tungsten steel which
he gained later, evidently satisfied himself that the tools had
been " ruined " through their having somehow been heated
to a temperature a little beyond a bright cherry redj and on
this basis we may attribute the failure of their " ruined "
nature to appear on the surface when they were sent into the
shop for testing to the fact that, unlike Mushet steel, chro-
mium-tungsten steel could be heated beyond the bright cherry
red temperature and still be forged.

Writing in 1908, to C. Codron, a French engineer of Lille,
Taylor said:

For some reason, the report has been spread abroad that the dis-
covery by Mr. Maunsel White and myself of modern high speed
tools was a mere accident. This, however, is far from the fact.
This discovery was (as explained 'in paragraphs 99 to no of the
original copy of the paper " On the Art of Cutting Metals " which
was forwarded to you) the result of a careful series of experiments
to find out whether tools of the chemical composition of those given
in paragraph 103 (7.7 tungsten, 1.8 chromium, etc.) which had been
overheated and thereby almost ruined, could be restored by any heat
treatment, so that they could cut metal as rapidly as they originally
could before overheating.

Here, then, was that which directly led to the high-speed
steel discovery. On the witness stand Taylor put it this way:

In view of my humiliating failure in the experiments above re-
ferred to at the Bethlehem Steel Works, which ended about October
20, 1898, I determined to try to discover a method of restoring
those four injured tools so that they could have the fine cutting
properties which my previous experiments [at Cramp's] indicated
that they should have.

While there was no heat treatment then known which would
restore tools that had been injured in the way those four

98 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Midvale tools had been, he determined to find whether, in
jacty there was not such a treatment. " Question everything j
question the simplest, most self-evident, most universally-
accepted facts" — that, as we have seen, was his principle j
and all that here follows shows what may come from its
practice.

And now enters Mr. White.

With this end in view [said Taylor in continuing his testimony]
an experimental order was issued by my request by the Superintend-
ent of Manufacture of the Bethlehem Steel Company to undertake
this investigation. This experiment was put in direct charge of
Mr. Maunsel White. I produce herewith the original copy of the
experimental order, which was transmitted to Mr. Maunsel White,
it being the custom in the Bethlehem Steel Company to send a large
number of duplicate copies of all experiments undertaken to various
heads of departments, foremen, etc., in the works, who were likely
to have anything to do with the carrying out of the experiment.

Dated October 23, 1898, and signed by R. W. Davenport,
as " Superintendent of Manufacture," the order set forth the
following " scheme of experiment " as " proposed by Mr.
F. W. Taylor":

" To determine the effect on Midvale Self-hardening Steel of
heating to different temperatures with a view to ascertaining the
temperature for procuring the best condition of grain for cutting pur-
poses, as shown by lathe tools.

" Select the four lathe tools which from their poor showing in
cutting qualities would appear to have been damaged in heating or
forging, or both, and attempt to restore the grain to a good condi-
tion by heating one tool to a barely visible red, one to a full blood
heat, one to a low cherry and one to a bright cherry; allowing to
cool in air from these respective heats.

" The tools to be then tested in Experimental Lathe, according
to instructions to be given by Mr. F. W. Taylor.

HOW DISCOVERY WAS MADE 99

" Mr. White," Taylor added on the stand, " was chosen
for this test because he was and had been for many years the
metallurgical engineer and expert of the Bethlehem Steel Com-
pany." That here again Taylor was the instigator, the in-
spirer, the driving force, there of course can be no doubt.
But to what extent did he have to rely on White as a pro-
fessional metallurgist? When he was cross-examined in the
patent suit, there occurred this colloquy:

Q. Did you have anything to do with determining the mix or
composition of the steel manufactured by that company [the reference
here being to Taylor's work at Midvale]?

yf . I did, although I was not technically the head of the melting
department.

Q. Are you a metallurgist or chemist?

J. I am something of a metallurgist and something of a chem-
ist. When it comes to calling one's self a metallurgist or a chemist
in the full sense of the term, I believe there are very few men
in this world entitled to call themselves by these names as profound
specialists.

Q. You think that you are as good as the average, but that you
are not a profound specialist in metallurgy and chemistry? Is
that correct?

A. I do not think that I am as good as the average analytical
chemist. I think that I am probably as good as the average steel
metallurgist.

It is possible that some part of the knowledge of metal-
lurgy to which he was able to profess when he testified in
1898 he had absorbed from White, but it would appear on
the face of it that White was drawn into these experiments
mainly because of his position. That in view of the peculiar
situation at Bethlehem Taylor deemed it expedient to have
as many old employees of the company as possible connected
with these experiments, is shown by this extract from his
testimony:

100 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

... in starting to make this whole series of experiments . . .
there were assigned to me two of the prominent employees of the
Bethlehem Steel Company to actually make the experiments on the
lathe. One of these was Mr. James Kellogg, previously and up
to this time foreman of the gun finishing department. . . . This man
was an exceptionally fine mechanic. The other assistant was a
Mr. Weldon, who had worked in the shop, was also an excellent
clerk, and quite an engineer. Mr. Weldon was assigned to this
job principally because he had married a niece or some relation of
the Vice President of the Company, and was supposed to have the
entire confidence of the higher officers of the company. Two men
of prominence of this sort were at my request given me for these
experiments for the purpose of educating them to the necessity of
higher speeds in the shop and the proper use of tools, and second
for the purpose of letting the higher officers of the company know
that these experiments were thoroughly and carefully conducted.

Returning now to his direct narrative, we read:

Mr. White and I, having consulted together, decided to make a
comprehensive series of experiments to determine the effect upon the
cutting speed of the tool produced by heating tools of this make or
chemical composition [the Midvale] at heats varying all the way from
a black red up to the melting point. It was our original plan to heat
these tools to temperatures varying about fifty degrees one from an-
other throughout this range and in order to carry out this series of tests
properly, we decided to order a Le Chatelier Pyrometer, or, more
properly speaking, new wires for the Le Chatelier Pyrometer, for
they had one at the works at that time.

Before the pyrometer was returned, they hit upon their
great and sensational discovery, and here is Taylor's descrip-
tion of it:

It took quite a number of days for this pyrometer to arrive at
the works, and in the meantime we decided to take what may be
called a preliminary canter through this field by heating tools to

HOW DISCOVERY WAS MADE loi

successive temperatures throughout this range, and judging these heats
merely with our eye, without the use of the pyrometer.

All of this make of tools, namely, those of the chemical composi-
tion referred to above [the Midvale], had been marked with the
letter " L " to distinguished them from other makes. Four of these
" L " tools were freshly forged in the blacksmith shop and then
stamped successively as follows: Li, L2, L3, and L4.

These tools were then successively heated at heats between a bright
cherry red and a bright yellow heat; Li being heated at a cherry red,
L4 at a bright yellow heat, and the intermediate tools to heats inter-
mediate between these two points. These tools gave, when used in the
experimental lathe, successively higher cutting speeds; Li giving the
lowest cutting speed, and L4 the highest.

On October 31, 1898, tools treated as above described were run
for tlie first time, and the final results obtained, more particularly
with L3 and L4, were so remarkable in their nature as to represent
the first discovery of the new property in cutting tools which con-
stitutes the subject of our patents.

These results were so extraordinary in their novelty that during the
last few experimental runs, lasting twenty minutes each, of these
tools, the machinists and foremen in the shop flocked around the ex-
perimental lathe until, finally, we were obliged to appoint one man
to drive them away from the lathe and make them attend to their
work.

During these runs the tools were producing continuously dark blue
chips, and at the same time, were leaving a fine finish on the work
and a smooth polish on the under side of the chip.

Before night of the first day of these phenomenal speeds it was
known to hundreds of mechanics all over Bethlehem that this remark-
able occurrence had taken place. I had never before seen anything
of this nature, nor do I believe anyone else had.

In the midst of the last run which was taken by it, the tool
marked L4 cracked a large piece out of the front of its nose. This
tool had been fire cracked through heating it with the upper surface
of the tool continually pointing upward in the fire, while the fire was
burning with an intensely hot heat. As a matter of interest, since

102 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

the tool marked what we believed to be an important discovery, it
was preserved and I produce it herewith.

At this point we read that the " tool produced by the witness
is offered in evidence on behalf of the plaintiff and marked
* Complainant's Exhibit, First Taylor-White Tool.* " A re-
cess then was taken, after which Taylor resumed:

The statements made by me regarding tools Li to L4. were
made from recollection without the record before me. I find on
referring to the record that the L4 tool broke its nose while running
at a cutting speed of 45 feet per minute. This tool was not ruined
from the sense of being run at too high a cutting speed. It failed
through a mechanical crack produced in heating in the smith shop.
On the other hand, tool L3, which was heated at a lower heat, and
which heat all of our subsequent experiments show does not produce
as good a tool as the light yellow heat at which L4 was heated, was
actually run at a higher cutting speed than L4 before it broke down.

L3 eventually ran at a cutting speed of 50 feet 6 inches, during
fifteen minutes, producing blue chips throughout the whole length of
the cut. In order that it may be appreciated what this gain in cut-
ting speed was, it should be understood that all four of these tools,
Li, L2, L3, and L4, after they had been forged in the ordinary
manner and before we started to heat them with the progressively
higher heats described above, were run in the lathe and no one of the
four tools in its natural condition as it came from the smith could
be run under a standard cut at a cutting speed of 28 feet per
minute, so that the effect of this extraordinary overheating in the
case of the L3 tool, for example, raised its cutting speed from less
than 28 feet per minute to as high as 50 feet per minute.

Now, in this testimony we should be able to find just what
basis there is for the statement that the Taylor-White dis-
covery was merely accidental.

It will be remembered that the essence of this discovery
was that while it was true that tools made of the chromium-
tungsten type which then prevailed were ruined when heated

HOW DISCOVERY WAS MADE 103

to a temperature greater than 1,500 degrees Fahr., and that
they continued to be ruined when subjected to a heat up to
about 1,750 degrees Fahr., their cutting efficiency was pro-
gressively increased when they were subjected to a heat
greater than 1,750 degrees j the improvement being marked
above the temperature of 1,850 degrees, and the greatest im-
provement taking "place just before the m>elting fointy or at
the maximum, tem^ferature to which it was possible to bring the
steel without destroying it.

What those who would believe that the Taylor- White dis-
covery was merely accidental specifically state is that it was
brought about through the accidental overheating by a black-
smith of one of the tools with which Taylor and White were
experimenting.

Some basis in fact this statement apparently has. Said
Taylor in the testimony from which we have just quoted:
" In the midst of the last run which was taken by it, the tool
marked L4 cracked a large piece out of the front of its nose.
This tool had been cracked through heating it with the upper
surface of the tool continually pointing upward in the fire,
while the fire was burning with an intensely hot heat." And
he added that this broken tool was preserved, since it " marked
what we believed to be an important discovery."

It would appear that since the death of both Taylor and
White, there is no one who, of his own, first-hand knowledge,
can tell the exact facts about this fire-cracked tool. However,
we have obtained statements from what may be called second-
hand sources that are to be considered highly reliable and
have the belief-compelling quality of agreeing with one
another. And what these statements would appear to indicate
is that this fire-cracked tool was, in that fire which was " burn-
ing with an intensely hot heat," accidentally or inadvertently
heated close to the melting point, and that when this tool was
tried again on the experimental lathe, the record it made

104 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

freciptated the discovery that such a heat treatment, or one
close to the melting point, is what is needed to impart to a
tool its maximum cutting efficiency.

If, then, we accept this as the fact, we here have the only
thing in the nature of a lucky accident that entered into the
Taylor-White discovery. And it will be recognized that this
element of luck, even if it occurred, was small indeed, see-
ing that its only effect could have been to precipitate a dis-
covery that would have been made anyway.

For be it remembered that Taylor and White had de-
liberately set out to experiment with heats " all the way from
a black red up to the melting point." In their " preliminary
canter through this field " previous to the return of their
pyrometer in fit condition for use, they experimented with
four tools " successively heated at heats between a bright
cherry red and a bright yellow heat." We know that by a
bright cherry red Taylor meant a temperature of about 1,500
degrees. It is not entirely clear just what, when he gave
the particular testimony we have quoted, he meant by a bright
yellow heat. Later on in his testimony, after he had examined
in greater detail the records made by him and White at the
time of their experiments, he said:

It is clear that by the term " yellow heat " at the time Mr. White
and I meant a heat higher than that which a tool of this composition
[the Midvale] could be forged. Now a tool of this composition can
be forged at a heat of about from 1,890 degrees, say, down; there-
fore, it is clear that by a yellow heat we mean a heat distinctly above
1,890 degrees.

And he went on to point out from their records that he and
White called a heat of "say, from 1,890 degrees down to
1,850 degrees " a " salmon " heat.

Here is an example of the lack of accuracy that necessarily is
connected with any color nomenclature for temperatures. But

HOW DISCOVERY WAS MADE 105

these are the essential facts: A yellow heat at the time of the
Taylor- White experiments invariably signified a heat greater
than red, and a bright yellow a heat that is beginning to
merge into a pure white heat or one that marks the melting
point of something above 1,900 degrees. Thus by a bright
yellow Taylor certainly meant a temperature higher than 1,725
degrees, the point that approximately marks the beginning of
the zone where tools cease to deteriorate when heated beyond
1,500 degrees. Indeed, by a bright yellow, he must have
meant a temperature higher than 1,850 degrees, the point
where the increased efficiency due to heating beyond 1,725
degrees becomes marked. For this is borne out by the per-
formances of the tools L3 and L4. Yes, even L3, which was
heated, according to orders, at less than the temperature which
Taylor called a bright yellow, cut at a speed greater than ever
had been known before j thus showing that even it must have
been subjected, not through accident but design, to a heat much
greater than 1,725 degrees.

The sum and substance of the whole matter, then, is this:
When on October 31, 1898, Taylor and White, as a direct
result of their scientific purpose to test the effect of heating
tools all the way up from 1,500 degrees to the melting point,
discovered that above 1,725 degrees began a zone that gave to
tools a greater efficiency than could be given to them by heating
them up to about 1,500 degrees, they had discovered that
which was the very essence of their whole great discovery.
This zone discovered, the further discovery that the very high-
est efficiency was given to tools when they were heated close to
the melting point was, no matter how made, a mere detail.

Yes, and no matter how accidental the heating of that tool
close to the melting point might have been, what would have
come from it If there had not been on the job at least one
man who was experim^enting with the heat treatment of tools
in a thoroughly scientific manner? Before October, 1898, it

io6 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

is quite likely that again and again blacksmiths inadvertently
had heated tools close up to the melting point. But if so, what
of it?

When we remember that neither Taylor nor White could
have had the least suspicion that there was a zone of higher ef-
ficiency in the heat treatment of tools, that the object of their
heating tools beyond a temperature of 1,500 degrees simply
was to find out whether there was any heat treatment that
would restore a tool that had been ruined in the course of
being treated according to the method then in vogue, we easily
can imagine their amazement at the performances of those
tools, L3 and L4.

I confess [said Taylor in writing in 1908 to M. Codron] that I
was completely astounded when I saw those tools cutting chips which
were dark blue in color, and still preserving their cutting edges sharp
and in good condition; and when, finally, the tools were heated close
to the melting point, and they were then able to cut cold metal, al-
though the tools themselves were red hot, I could hardly believe the
evidence of my eyes.

CHAPTER IX

WHAT FOLLOWED THE DISCOVERY

THERE is," said Taylor, on the witness stand, " a vast
difference between the discovery of a new fact and the
reducing of even a true discovery to a commercially
useful result." And he continued:

To explain the application of this general statement to this particu-
lar case, it must be understood that perhaps the most important re-
quirement for metal-cutting tools which are to be successfully used
in the machine shop is that these tools shall be of uniform quality;
that is to say, that they shall be so uniform that the user can depend
on any one of the batch of say fifty or one hundred tools cutting at
practically the same cutting speed as all the others. It should be
clearly understood that if in a machine shop even a comparatively
small number of tools in the shop are of such a quality that they can
only be run at a slow cutting speed, this practically necessitates run-
ning as the standard speed of the shop all the rest of these tools at
slow cutting speeds. In order, therefore, that tools having the high
cutting speeds of those discovered by us could be practically used
in our machine shop, it was necessary not only to have made the
original discovery above described, but in addition to have found out,
through a long series of experiments, how to make these tools prac-
tically all uniform in their high cutting speeds.

Mr. White and I then started a series of experiments with a view to
finding how these tools could be made practically useful in a machine
shop, and to our great surprise these experiments dragged on through
many months.

Instead of being a comparatively simple work, as we anticipated
after our first results, it proved to be an exceedingly complex and
difficult series of experiments.

107

io8 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

By way of illustrating the fact, I will mention that we made, while
Mr. White and I were together on this work at Bethlehem, all told
over 16,000 reported experiments, probably one-half of which were
devoted to the development of the Taylor- White process; that is,
to the development of these high-speed cutting tools.

In an estimate of the cost of these experiments which we made
before I left Bethlehem, we traced this cost to somewhere between
fifty thousand and one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

It was fully eight or nine months after this original discovery
before we allowed even a few of these tools to go into the machine
shop into every-day practical use, although, of course, it must be
understood that we made very many of these experiments with these
tools, not only on the special experimental lathe which was fitted up
for this purpose, but on machines of various kinds in the practical
work of the shop.

The experiments had to do with the determination of two
specific things: (i) the exact chemical composition of steel
which would produce the best and most nearly uniform re-
sults when heated close to the melting point j (2) the exact
procedure to be followed in giving the steel this high heat
treatment.

He knew that the chemical experiments gave to progress in
this connection a great fillip.

Our statement made in the patent [he testified] that we did not
find that carbon was a material factor in its effect upon the cutting
speeds of tools treated by our process and our specific statement that
we had worked with steels containing from .85 per cent to 2 per
cent of carbon without noticeable difference in the character of the
tool produced by our treatment has had doubtless a greater effect
upon the development of high-speed tools of our invention than any
other statement made by us. . . .

Now, a self -hardening tool made with carbon as low as .85 was up
to the time of our having experimented with this tool, so far as I
know, absolutely unknown in the tool-steel world. Therefore, when
we announced in our patent that a tool as low in carbon contents as

WHAT FOLLOWED THE DISCOVERY 109

this would, under our treatment, produce as good a tool as those with
the high carbon contents, this at once awakened the interest of all
intelligent readers of our patent. And it was but natural to ex-
periment with tools not only having carbon as low as this, but to
seek out the lowest practicable carbon limit and experiment with this.
In these experiments upon tools made of low carbon, it was developed
very soon after this that by lowering the carbon it was possible to
increase very materially the amount of tungsten and also the amount
of chromium and still have a tool which could be successfully forged,
and which was not brittle in the body, and which it was found later
developed even higher cutting speeds than the tools of the exact
composition described by us in our patent. In this way, the carbon
statement made by us in our patent . . . suggested the very evident
line of future investigation upon which progress in the art was made.

Just previous to writing his metal-cutting paper of 1906,
he tested the " noted " English, German, and American makes
of high-speed steel that had appeared since his Bethlehem
experiments of 1898—99, and in his paper recommended what
he then considered the best chemical composition. That his
judgment was excellent is indicated by an article in the issue of
Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering for May 26, 1920.
The author, A. J. Langhammer, an engineer of high stand-
ing who had made an exceptionally extensive investigation of
high-speed steel, said:

Regarding the desired chemical composition, the writer feels that

the following analysis is probably the most desirable for modern

high-speed steel. Alongside is also affixed the analysis of the best

high-speed steel tested by Frederick W. Taylor when he wrote his

classical monograph " On the Art of Cutting Metals." It shows

that this master has apparently plumbed the depth of the art, so

tliat the last fifteen years show little progress in new compositions.

As a matter of fact, Taylor recommended an ideal composition.^

^ This confirmed an experience Barth had in 191 8 in Buffalo when in the
course of his regular engineering work he was called on to test the leading
brands of tool steel then on the market. The steel of the composition recom-
mended by Taylor easily led all the others.

no FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

How thorough Taylor made the Bethlehem experiments
which had for their object the determination of the best heat
treatment may be read in this statement of his:

In giving the tools the high heat we heated them in a blacksmith's
coke fire, a blacksmith's soft coal fire, in muffles over a blacksmith's
fire, and in gas heated muffles. We heated the tools by means of an
electric current, with their noses under water, and out of water, and
by immersion in molten cast iron. . . .

In cooling from the high heat we experimented with a large
variety of methods. After being heated close to the melting point,
tools were immediately buried in lime, in powdered charcoal, and in a
mixture of lime and powdered charcoal; thus they were cooled
extremely slowly, hours being required. . . .

Tools were also cooled from the high heat in a muffle or slow
cooling furnace with a similar result. On the other hand, we made
excellent high speed tools by plunging them directly in cold water
from the high heat, and allowing them to become as cold as the water
before removing them. Between these two extremes of slow and
fast cooling . . . other cooling experiments covering a wide range
were conducted. We tried cooling them partly in water and then
slowly for the rest of the time; partly in oil, and then slowly for
the rest of the time; partly by a heavy blast of air from an ordinary
blower and the rest of the time slowly; partly under a blast of
compressed air and then slowly. We also reversed these operations
by cooling first slowly and then fast, as described. We also cooled
them entirely in an air blast and entirely in oil, and then partly
first in oil, afterward in water, and then first in water and after-
ward in oil.^

It was his belief up to his death that no radical improve-
ment had been made in heating tools over the methods de-
veloped by him and White at Bethlehem. In view of the
" fundamental and revolutionary " nature of their change and
the innumerable heating experiments that had followed theirs,
he considered this extraordinary.

1 On the Art of Cutting Metals, p. 231.

WHAT FOLLOWED THE DISCOVERY iii

As tools of varying chemical composition were heated in
various ways at Bethlehem, they were mostly tried out on the
large experimental lathe which " was especially fitted up for
the purpose of accurately testing the commercial, as well as
the scientific, value of tools."

There were employed in running this lathe [Taylor testifiedl two
men at least all the time, and for the greater part of the time, three
men, and for a considerable portion of the time also this lathe
was run at night, as well as during the daytime, a second set of men
coming on to run it during the night, or else the day runners staying
over until late in the evening, say nine or ten o'clock.

If before night on October 31, 1898, it was known through-
out the town that on that day steel had been cut at phenomenal
speeds in the machine shop of the Bethlehem Company, the
report of this occurrence quickly spread far beyond the limits
of the town. Continuing his testimony, Taylor said:

Within a few days ... we began to receive letters and inquiries
from people outside of our works in other machine shops, asking
what it was that we had discovered. For a long time, however, we
refused to admit outsiders to see these tools working. After, however,
our invention had progressed to a certain stage, we began permitting
people to see the tools in use.

More than two hundred and fifty prominent engineers, superin-
tendents of works, and managers of machine shops came from all
parts of the world to see these tools run in the Bethlehem shops.
One came from Australia, another from South Africa, others from
almost every country in Europe, and one or two from South America,
as well as many from Canada and all parts of the United States;
and these men spent all the way from a few hours to a week or
more in the shops, watching the working of the tools. A large
number of these men brought their own tools with them for us to
run in competition, or rather in comparison, with ours, and invariably
with the same result that not a single tool which was brought by an
outsider to our shop ran at anything approaching the cutting speed
of our tools.

112 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

What happened when it became possible to put the high-
speed tools to practical use, Taylor described on the stand as
follows:

When we were finally ready to introduce these tools on a large
scale into the machine shop, the main lines of shafting in the shop
were speeded up from 96 revolutions per minute (their speed be-
fore the introduction of our new tools) to 225-300 revolutions per
minute. It was our wish to speed up these lines of shafting even
to a higher speed than those just given, but in this case we were
h'mited in the possible speed of our main lines of shafting by the
vibration caused in the shop through these extraordinary high speeds.
In addition to this increased speed in the main lines of shafting, in
a great many cases we increased the speed ratio also of the counter-
shafting of the machine to that of the main line, thus running the
machines at even a higher cutting speed than that indicated by this
increase in the speed of the main lines of shafting.

The output in poundage of the principal machine shop of the
Bethlehem Steel Company was more than doubled, and this means
that the machines during the time when they were actually cutting
metals worked much more than twice as fast as they did before,
since, as everybody knows, a great part of the time consumed in a
machine shop is taken up with putting the work into the machines,
taking it out, adjusting the speeds, measuring it for size, and also
for taking the final finishing cuts for which class of work, namely,
taking finishing cuts, our high-speed tools were not suited.

All along the machine shop had been limiting the output of
the entire works. The forgings, in fact, had been piling up
until the congestion became so great that additional machining
equipment, estimated to cost about a million dollars, was
deemed imperative. Not only was this large expenditure
made unnecessary, but the new way of cutting steel made it
possible to operate in the machine shop on rougher forgings,
and thus the hammer shop as well as the forging department
was relieved. As may be readily imagined, the Taylor- White

WHAT FOLLOWED THE DISCOVERY 113

discovery also gave the Bethlehem Company the finest kind
of advertising in trade circles. From a position of compara-
tive obscurity, it suddenly was raised to world-wide fame.
Yet in a letter written by Taylor in March, 1901, to Mr.
Linderman, the president, we find this statement:

It is a curious psychological fact, and one for which the writer
can find no explanation, that of all the parties who have visited the
works and are acquainted with what has been done here, the only
ones who have failed to congratulate the writer upon the results
accomplished are with one or two exceptions the leading officers of the
company.

With full confidence in what his methods were designed
to do for the company, Taylor as early as March, 1899, ap-
pealed to Joseph Wharton to put him " in the way of sub-
scribing to as large an amount of the new common stock and as
close to the ground floor as possible." This opportunity was
denied him, but he was not to be denied when he and Wharton
late in 1899 or early in 1900 got together about the high-
speed patents. Our information is that Wharton first as-
serted that, inasmuch as the inventions covered in the patents
were made during time paid for by and at the general ex-
pense of the Bethlehem Company, the patents were the
property of that company. Taylor's view was that all the
company was entitled to under the circumstances was a shop
right and the first opportunity to buy the patents, which were
to be applied for in Canada, Great Britain, France, Belgium,
and Austria as well as here. His figure for the United States
patents alone was fifty thousand dollars. How it all came out
appears in the testimony taken in 1908 when the patents were
in litigation. Asked to state what price or consideration he
had received, Taylor replied:

About sixty thousand dollars for United States rights, and in
addition to this, half of the price for which the rights were sold to

114 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

foreign countries. This half amounted to $68,875, so that we re-
ceived, all told, $128,875. It must be said, however, that Mr.
White and I developed some other inventions, such as furnaces and
temperature-measuring apparatus, which also went with these patents
as part of the goods delivered on our side. These furnaces, etc.,
referred to by me were used in the practice of a process described in
the patents in litigation.

Q. Were you, and if so, for how long, engaged or connected
with the sales of shop rights and other interests in patents on behalf
of the Bethlehem Steel Company?

A. I had general oversight of the sale of shop rights under these
patents until the end of the month of February, 1 90 1, at which
time I turned over the sale of shop rights in this company to the
regular sales department of the Bethlehem Steel Company. While
I had charge of the sale of shop rights I had two men in the sales
department conducting the correspondence and attending generally
to the sales under my supervision.

Q. Up to the time when you relinquished your supervision over
the sales, how much had been received by the Bethlehem Steel Com-
pany or other interests in the patents taken out to cover the inventions
in suit?

A. The Bethlehem Steel Company had received by the sale of
shop rights in the United States $49,400, and for the sale of the
patents abroad the gross sum of $137,750, one half of which they
paid to me, leaving them net receipts from foreign patents of
$68,875, so that the net receipts by the Bethlehem Steel Company for
foreign and American sales amounted to $118,275.

Among the American concerns that immediately paid for
shop rights were William Sellers & Company, the Link Belt
Engineering Company, and the Pennsylvania and Lehigh
Valley railways. In view of what later happened at Bethlehem,
it is of special interest that the entire English rights were
acquired at a price of $100,000 by the firm of Vickers' Sons
& Maxim.

All the money that the Bethlehem Company paid for the

WHAT FOLLOWED THE DISCOVERY 115

American and foreign rights was divided equally by Taylor
and White. And out of the money thus received they made
substantial presents to those of their subordinates who had
been of material assistance in developing their inventions.

The sale of the patents was consummated in February,
1900, and a little later the Bethlehem Company decided to
exhibit the work of its high-speed tools at the Paris Exposition
which was to open that summer. Taylor made this exhibit
the occasion of a six-weeks' visit abroad with his wife. It
was his first European trip since his boyhood. They first
went to England, and then to France. Again we quote from
his patent-suit testimony:

I was in Paris for a Httle over three weeks during this exhibition
of 1900, and of course was a very considerable part of my time at
the exhibit of the Bethlehem Steel Company, where these tools were
being run. It was the practice to run these tools for a period of
about twenty minutes consecutively, and then to wait perhaps from
five to fifteen minutes before again running another tool, or the
same tool. Each time that this experimental lathe was started there
was a great rush of people from all parts of the building to see
the tools cutting with their noses red hot, and turning out blue
chips, and the entire exhibit, together with all the space around it,
was jammed with people trying to get a view of the tools cutting.

As an illustration of the interest taken in these tools, one of the
higher members of the Armstrong, Whitworth Company introduced
himself to me and told me that his company had paid the expenses of
ten of their different foremen and shop superintendents to come
over to the Paris Exposition with no other object than to see these
tools running. He said that he wished to educate these men, by a
practical object lesson, in what they would have to do in the future
in the way of speeds. While I was there Mr. Ludwig Loewe, the
owner of the largest machine shops in Germany, was at the exhibition.
He asked for an interview with me and introduced me to seven of
his managers and superintendents whom he informed me he had
brought to Paris to see these tools running.

ii6 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

I also met one of the representatives of Vickers' Sons & Maxim in
England who told me they had paid the expenses of their men to
come to Paris for the same purpose. There was great complaint on
the part of the other exhibitors in the same building in which the
Bethlehem experimental tools were being run that owing to the
Bethlehem exhibit their various machines received little or no attention.

How the exhibit impressed the French we may gather from
this statement by Henri Le Chatelier, then as later director
of ha Revue de Metallurgie:

Few discoveries in the arts have been the occasion of so many
successive surprises as those of Mr. Taylor. At the time of the
Exposition of 1900 in Paris, nobody quite believed at first in the
prodigious result which was claimed by the Bethlehem Works, but
we had to accept the evidence of our eyes when we saw enormous
chips of steel cut oif from a forging by a tool at such high speed
that its nose was heated by the friction to a dull red color.

The use of the high speed Taylor-White steels spread rapidly in
our manufacturing plants; we became accustomed to them and were
no longer astounded at their qualities. People did not even take the
trouble to investigate the exact origin of this great discovery. The
legend sprang up that the invention was made through the carelessness
of a workingman, who had accidentally overheated this tool and thus,
contrary to all predictions, had greatly improved it. People were
satisfied with this explanation, and the originator of the discovery
did not even take the trouble to deny it.^

That is, having other things to think about, Taylor did
not take this trouble until several years later. Originating in
England, the lucky-chance report was the means of bringing
him and his great French supporter together.

Struck by the evident importance of high speed tool steel [says
Le Chatelier], I reviewed systematically all the articles bearing on
this discovery, in order to give extracts from them in La Revue de

^ Le Chatelier's formal comment on Taylor's paper On the Art of Cutting
Metals.

WHAT FOLLOWED THE DISCOVERY 117

Metallurgle. I published, among other things, an extract from a
lecture of a Sheffield engineer, Mr. Gledhill, attributing the dis-
covery of high speed tool steel to a lucky chance. . . . Not believ-
ing in chance, I followed up this article with some personal remarks,
saying that it had certainly required a high order of scientific ob-
servation and investigation on the part of the engineers in question to
have been able to draw such an important discovery from the care-
lessness of a workman. This article fell under the eye of Frederick
Taylor. Some months afterward when he decided to publish the
history of his discovery in his celebrated presidential address to the
Mechanical Engineers, " On the Art of Cutting Metals," he sent me
a copy of the final proofs, thanking me for my words of appreciation.
It might interest me, he said, to know that chance, as I had foreseen,
had had absolutely nothing to do in the discovery of high speed
tool steel. ^

On the face of it, it may seem curious that the Sheffield men
should have asserted that the Taylor- White discovery was due
merely to a lucky chance, while they also asserted that it
was not a discovery at all. The answer would appear to be
that the idea that it was not a discovery at all occurred to them
only when they were aroused to the need of knocking out
the Taylor- White patents in the interest of their trade. How
they felt about this discovery at the time of the Paris Exposi-
tion appears in an article written by Dr. J. T. Nicolson, of
the Manchester Municipal School of Technology, and pub-
lished in 1 901 in The Ironmongery the Sheffield steel trade's
organ. Said Dr. Nicolson:

The remarkable qualities displayed by the Taylor-White tool
steel during the trials conducted by the Bethlehem Steel Company at
the Paris Exposition of 1900, at once attracted the attention of
engineers from all parts of the world, and, as an immediate con-
sequence, many makers of special steels were induced to bestir them-
selves vigorously in search of new methods by which they hoped, if

^ Paper prepared by Le Chatelier for Taylor memorial meeting held
at Boxly in October, 1915.

Ii8 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

not actually to rival the purpose of the Taylor-White brand, at
least to increase very largely the cutting speed and the general
efficiency of their own products. . . .

People who are disposed to be scared at the cry that we are
falling behind other nations in manufacturing methods should de-
rive comfort from a knowledge that remarkable improvements have
lately been effected in the Sheffield tool-steel industry, and that the
United States are being beaten by Sheffield in this important com-
modity for mechanical engineering work. It is true that the discovery
which has led to the improvements is American, but the fact remains
that, when the Sheffield makers had once convinced themselves of
its merits, they were able to, in a few months, produce an article far
superior to that made by their rivals.

The introduction of this improved process will make the present
year a landmark in the history of steel making and engineering.
Formerly it was believed to be impossible to make tool steel which
would cut when hot, and as the heat generated by friction drew the
temper and destroyed the cutting edge of turning or planing tools,
the speed of the machines on which the steel was worked had to be
kept far below their capacity. The feelings with which Sheffield
visitors to the Paris Exposition saw red-hot American tool steel turn-
ing casting at double the speed then practiced at Sheffield were the
reverse of pleasant, for Sheffield tool steel had been in unchallenged
use in engineering shops of the world despite prohibitive tariffs,
and the possibility of Sheffield being compelled to yield her supremacy
to America had never been contemplated.

We, of course, need not take too seriously the good doctor's
" face-saving " boast of how the Americans were being beaten
at their own game. The important thing was then, even as
it must be now, that credit should go where credit belongs,
and that above everything else it should be recognized, in the
true Taylor spirit, that the Taylor- White discovery and in-
vention, with all it means for industry and the world in
general, was due not so much to the virtue of any particular
person or persons as to the virtue of the scientific method.

CHAPTER X

PROGRESS WITH SHOP METHODS AND
MECHANISMS

THEY called him " Speedy " Taylor. Speed was all
they could see in his work. Put your metal into your
machine and let her rip! To this day this remains
the notion many people have of high-speed steel.

That speed is not always the thing should readily appear
when it is considered that a speed limit usually is fixed by the
destructive effect upon the tool of the heat generated by the
friction as the tool tears away the metal upon which it is
operating. Naturally the amount of friction and consequent
heat will depend upon the hardness of this metal. Hence
that element in the problem which Taylor called " the quality
of the metal to be cut." Then there is " the thickness of the
shaving" J the fact being that you can remove more metal
with a given amount of power by taking a big cut with a slow
speed than by taking a small cut with a higher speed, and your
tool will last longer. This, however, is not so true of steel
as of cast iron, and there are many other little refinements
of this principle.^

The foregoing means, of course, that Taylor found that
"the chemical composition of the steel from which the tool
is made, and the heat treatment of the tool " is only one of
many elements or variables that have to be considered every
time a metal-cutting machine is operated. And until he had

^ Because of these and other complications involved in the art of cutting
metals, it soon proved that a Taylor-trained expert in this art could get better
results with the old carbon tools than a tyro in this art could get with high-
speed tools,

119

120 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

a practical, cvery-day means of dealing with all these ele-
ments, the object of all his metal-cutting experiments would
not be accomplished. And so he said:

While many of the results of these experiments are both inter-
esting and valuable, we regard as of by far the greatest value that
portion of our experiments and of our mathematical w^ork which has
resulted in the development of the slide rules; i.e., the patient in-
vestigation and mathematical expression of the exact effect upon the
cutting speed of such elements as the shape of the cutting edge of
the tool, the thickness of the shaving, the depth of the cut, the
quality of the metal being cut and the duration of the cut, etc.
This work enables us to fix a daily task with a definite time allowance
for each workman who is running a machine tool, and to pay the
men a bonus for rapid work.

The gain from these slide rules is far greater than that of all the
other improvements combined, because it accomplishes the original
object for which in 1880 the experiments were started; i.e., that
of taking the control of the machine shop out of the hands of the
many workmen, and placing it completely in the hands of the
management, thus superseding " rule of thumb " by scientific control.^

At the beginning of December, 1899, Carl Earth's slide
rule was put into practical use for the first time, this in con-
nection with thirteen of the most important lathes. A magic
instrument, a determiner of the law! But now that you have
your slide rule, now that you can find out the law, what are
you going to do with itP

The slide rules [said Taylor] cannot be left at the lathe to be
banged about by the machinist. They must be used by a man with
reasonably clean hands, and at a table or desk, and this man must
write his instructions as to speed, feed, depth of cut, etc., and send
them to the machinist well in advance of the time that the work is
to be done. Even if these written instructions are sent to the
machinist, however, little attention will be paid to them unless rigid
^ On the Art of Cutting Metals, p. 39.

SHOP METHODS AND MECHANISMS 121

standards have been not only adopted but enforced throughout the
shop for every detail, large and small, of the shop equipment, as well
as for all shop methods. And, further, but little can be accomplished
vi^ith these laws unless the old-style foreman and shop superintendent
have been done away with, and functional foremanship has been
substituted, — consisting of speed bosses, gang bosses, order-of-work
men, inspector, time study men, etc. In fact, the correct use of
slide rules involves the substitution of our whole task system of
management.^

Infinitely patient in working things out, Taylor frequently
laid himself open to the charge of being impatient with people
who questioned his conclusions. It is said that he did not
sufficiently allow for the fact that people may seem stupid to
you when the only difference between them and you is that
their minds naturally run or have been trained to run in dif-
ferent channels. It is certain that no one could have been more
patient than Taylor was when a person came to him seeking
information with an open mindj and while, of course, no
human being's conclusions are to be accepted as infallible, it
would seem that when he, with his high-strung nerves, gave
way to irritation, it often had large excuse in the fact that
people had a way of disputing his conclusions as if they were
just notions of his.^ There indeed was a world of tragedy
in his inability to make the generality understand that he
held certain conclusions, not because they appealed to his
fancy, but because they had been forced upon him by his
investigations into the working of natural law and by the
remorseless logic of events.

Previously he had taken more or less tentative steps in the
direction of functional foremanship and the planning depart-

1 Ibid., p. 53.

2 " Thoughtless people," says Emerson, " contradict as readily the state-
ment of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; for they
do not distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy that I choose
to see this or that. But perception is not whimsical, but fatal."

122 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

ment. And it should be plain that now at Bethlehem, in
consequence of his discoveries in the domain of natural law,
he literally was compelled to advance definitely in this
direction.

That we may fully understand his course in that big ma-
chine shop, let us go back to the beginning.

When he came to Bethlehem in the spring of 1898, the
superintendent of this shop was Harry Leibert, one of several
members of a family who held important positions throughout
the works. Such organization as there was in the shop con-
sisted simply of its division into geographical sections, with a
foreman in charge of each section. There was not even a
grouping of machines in accordance with kind, much less with
size. Thus, as Taylor said in a report to Linderman, each
foreman " had to look after the running of lathes, planers.
Blotters, drill presses, milling machines, shapers, etc., of all
sizes. He had to look ahead and provide work, so as to keep
all of his men busyj he had to see that the work was turned
out in the proper order of precedence, that each job was done
right and that the best methods for doing the work were
employed, that his men were provided with tools of the
proper shape and quality, and that they ran their machines at
the proper speed and kept them in proper order, besides teach-
ing ^ green ' hands to do their work and performing many
other duties."

At the same time, Taylor felt justified in reporting to
Linderman (in August, 1898) that this big No. 2 machine
shop had right along been turning out work of high quality,
" mainly due to Mr. Harry Leibert, who, owing to his great
skill as a mechanic and to his personal supervision of the work,
has insured its superior quality." The shop, however, was
not turning out the largest possible amount of work " per man
and machine," and was not producing the work as cheaply
as possible. The shop was not " uniformly busy." Neither

SHOP METHODS AND MECHANISMS 123

was it fulfilling promises for delivery with " approximate ac-
curacy." But nothing in all this, said Taylor (observe his
tact), was Mr. Leibert's fault. It was to be "charged rather
upon the present organization of the shop."

The first step he made in the direction of that specialization
which is the essence of functional foremanship and the plan-
ning department was to group all of the machines in accordance
with kind and size, and place a gang boss in charge of each
group. Then gradually, probably with scarcely a thought of
the principle involved, he began creating other positions calling
for specialization J such as those of (we are quoting from
one of his reports to Linderman) " a Tool Room Boss in
charge of making, grinding, and storing, and issuing tools j a
man, with assistants under him, directing the order of prec-
edence in which work should be done on all machines; a man,
with assistants, to direct the proper cutting speeds of all
machines, together with the size of cuts to be taken, the feeds
and the shapes of tools to be used; a man, with assistants, to
study the time required to do all hand work in the shop, and
ultimately, together with the man in charge of cutting speeds,
to fix piece-work prices."

Probably it was not until he had to explain why he created
these positions that he really began to think of the principle
involved. The more he thought of it, the more it appealed
to him as correct, this principle that bosses shall specialize and
so become expert, and rule only as they have their expert
knowledge. Accused of creating supernumerary positions, he
had to advocate this principle openly. And as he said, it
acted " as the proverbial red rag on the bull " among men
holding the higher management positions.

In consequence of the reorganization of the big machine
shop, Harry Leibert retired from the superintendency, and
was succeeded by his former assistant, E. P. Earle. Slowly
Taylor made progress, at least with the men lower down.

124 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Explanation and theory [he said] will go a little way, but actual
doing is needed to carry conviction. To illustrate: For nearly two
and one-half years in the large shop of the Bethlehem Steel Company,
one speed boss after another was instructed in the art of cutting metals
fast on a large motor-driven lathe which was especially fitted to
run at any desired speed within a very wide range. The work done
in this machine was entirely connected, either with the study of cut-
ting tools or the instruction of speed bosses. It was most interesting
to see these men, principally either former gang bosses or the best
workmen, gradually change from their attitude of determined and
positive opposition to that in most cases of enthusiasm for, and earnest
support of, the new methods. It was actually running the lathe
themselves according to the new method and under the most positive
and definitive orders that produced the effect. The writer himself
ran the lathe and instructed the first few bosses. It required from
three weeks to two months for each man. Perhaps the most important
part of the gang boss's and foreman's education lies in teaching them
to promptly obey orders and instructions received not only from the
superintendent or some official high in the company, but from any
member of the planning room whose especial function it is to direct
the rest of the works in his particular line; and it may be accepted
as an unquestioned fact that no gang boss is fit to direct his men
until after he has learned to promptly obey instructions received from
any proper source, whether he likes his instructions and the instructor
or not, and even although he may be convinced that he knows a much
better way of doing the work. The first step is for each man to
learn to obey the laws as they exist, and next, if the laws are
wrong, to have them reformed in the proper way.^

When in later years he spoke about the " great mental revo-
lution " that was necessary if Scientific Management were to
prevail in any establishment, he was aware that it sounded
" like buncome." And many were the engineers who were
antagonized by the religious flavor his movement acquired.
Yet it actually was the fact that men to follow after him

^ Shof Management y p. 139.

SHOP METHODS AND MECHANISMS 125

had to undergo a mental revolution singularly like that of a
religious conversion. To the undeveloped soul, liberty of self-
expression means liberty to follow one's individual ways.
That it is hard to give up these ways, no one can deny. It
is a giving up of one's self. And life knows no fiercer battle
than the struggle of a soul with its self-will. But here arises
the paradox that lies at the heart of all religion. To give up
one's self is to find one's self. The individual, having sacri-
ficed his individuality, becomes a greater individual. He be-
comes a participant in other lives besides his own.

Taylor was not the only hero at Bethlehem. If he brought
the fire, others caught it. Humble men. The bosses lower
down. Plain workingmen. It was interesting, Taylor said, to
see them change their attitude. They changed from opposi-
tion to enthusiasm because the giving up of one's individual
ways and the taking up of scientific ways is indeed the link-
ing up of oneself with the larger life represented by general
human experience and knowledge and progress. For the most
part they changed under pressure. It was " positive and defi-
nite orders " that did the trick. But that means only that they
needed support through that trying period when the old, nar-
row self is dying and the new and greater self is being born.^

Now, it is to be considered that while in the years 1898 and
1899 Taylor was struggling to establish in that big machine
shop a system of functional foremanship and develop this into
a regular planning department, and so give that shop a brain

•^ From Taylor's Bethlehem days on, these conversions, really remarkable
in the changed outlook they brought to men, became more and more frequent.
"You do not get Scientific Management," it has been said; "Scientific Man-
agement gets you." Something of what it means the reader can realize for
himself if he will, in connection with his own work, whatever it may be,
cultivate the habit of always doing things in the best way that is open to
him under all the surrounding conditions. Soon he not only will always be
looking for the one best way, but striving to improve the surrounding con-
ditions. This surely will set him to wondering what the other fellow is doing,
and he will be brought into touch with general human experience. Then
let him note the effect upon his intellect and character.

126 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

commensurate with its size,' he was working first to get the
slide rule developed and then to get his high-speed tools
ready for every-day use. And the long time this took made
things awkward.

For one thing, it delayed the fixing of a piece rate. It was
Taylor's intention to establish the system of differential rates
he had developed at Midvale. Certainly he was anxious to
get the men earning more than their customary wages j for
upon this object lesson of the benefit to them of the new
methods he mainly depended to win the support of the rank
and file. Obviously, however, rates could not be set that
would be sure to stand until it was known with certainty how
the production of the shop would be affected by the high-
speed tools and the scientific speeding of the machines through
the instrumentality of the slide rules.

If, owing to no extra exertion on the part of the men, no new
invention on the part of the men [said Taylor], a new and superior
device has been adopted for doing the work — we will say a new
machine has been introduced that never was used before, and if that
machine can turn out five or ten times the number of pieces the old
machine turned out, the man is paid just the same 35 per cent in-
crease in wages as he was yesterday. I want to make the fact
perfectly clear that there is no implied bargain under scientific man-
agement that the pay of the man shall be proportional to the number
of pieces turned out. There is no bargain of that sort. There is a

^ In a paper prepared for the Taylor memorial meeting, Professor J. J.
Sederholm, of Helsingfors, Finland, wrote: "Last winter when I was alter-
nately lecturing on the Taylor System and the Evolution of the Animal
World, I was struck by a curious analogy. . . .The monster reptiles of the
Mesozoic era had only minute brains in their gigantic bodies. Still at the
eve of the Tertiary era mammals with the size of our cattle had brains as
small as a walnut, and it was not until the end of that era that the brains
attained their present size. . . . Industry . . . has not yet advanced beyond
the Mesozoic stage, but the time will soon come when people will regard shops
without a planning department of sufficient size, shops where hundreds of
laborers are managed by half a dozen of engineers and foremen, with the
same wonder as is felt by us when we look at the skeleton of a Diflodocus
Carnegie with its gigantic body and almost microscopical brain."

SHOP METHODS AND MECHANISMS 127

new type of bargain, however, and that is this: Under scientific
management we propose at all times to give the workman a perfectly
fair and just task, a task which we would not on our side hesitate
to do ourselves, one which will never overwork a competent man.
But that the moment we find a new and improved or a better way
of doing the work everyone will fall into line and work at once
according to the new method. It is not a question of how much
work the man turned out before with another method. Mr. Barth
here has perhaps been the most efficient man of all the men who have
been connected with scientific management in devising new methods
for turning out work fast. I can remember a number of — one or
two — instances in which almost over night he devised a method
for turning out almost twenty times as much as had been turned
out before with no greater effort to the workman. In that case you
could not pay the workman twenty times the wage. It would be
absurd, would it not? ^

Under normal conditions, the great majority of workmen
are, of course, reasonable enough to agree that when an in-
crease of production is not due to their own efforts, their
rate must be reduced so that their wages will remain the same
or be only a little increased. Such rate-reduction is far dif-
ferent from that which is designed to bring them back to their
same old wages after they have been encouraged to do more
or better work. However, it would have been most un-
fortunate under the circumstances existing at Bethlehem if
Taylor had set rates which would have had to be reduced a
little later. It was not only that it remained to be seen what
would be the effect on the production of the high-speed tools
and the slide rules. Almost every week in that shop improve-
ments were being made in the management that affected the
production. For example, new belting and a regular system
of taking care of it were being installed.^

^ Testimony before Special House Committee.

^ It appears from the documents left by Taylor that Bethlehem was the
first place where he wrote out a set of definite rules for the care of belting;
that is, formally reduced its care to standard practice.

128 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

In this emergency Gantt came forward with a very happy
idea. This was that a daily bonus of fifty cents be offered
every man who accomplished the task set for him on his in-
struction card. The man, you see, would be assured of his
customary earnings. At the same time, he would have an
incentive for reaching the standard called for by his instruc-
tion card. And as the amount of work he ought to turn out
might vary from time to time as improvements were made in
machinery or management, this could be reflected on his in-
struction card.

Taylor hailed the idea with enthusiasm. A little later,
Mr. Earle, the new superintendent, suggested that the func-
tional foremen should also receive bonuses, these to depend
upon the bonuses earned by the workmen. Taylor saw at once
that this would encourage the foremen to teach and help the
men, and adopted this suggestion also.

At first Gantt's idea, with Earle's supplementing one, was
regarded as a temporary expedient only. In later years, how-
ever, Gantt developed his task and bonus idea into a regular
system having permanent value as a means of meeting certain
special conditions of frequent occurrence.

Task work with a bonus [said Taylor] was invented by Mr. H. L.
Gantt, while he was assisting the writer in organizing the Bethle-
hem Steel Company. The possibilities of his system were imme-
diately recognized by all of the leading men engaged on the work,
and long before it would have been practicable to use the differential
rate, work was started under this plan. It was successful from the
start, and steadily grew in volume and favor, and to-day is more
extensively used than ever before.^

No one saw more clearly than Taylor that while principles
are (more or less) universal, methods of applying them must
vary in accordance with time and place, or even to meet dif-
ferent conditions in the same establishment.

1 Shof Management, p. 77.

SHOP METHODS AND MECHANISMS 129

It is clear [he wrote] that in carrying out the task idea after
the required knowledge has been obtained through a study of unit
times, each of the four systems, (a) day work, {b) straight piece
work, (c) task work with a bonus, and (d) differential piece work,
has its especial field of usefulness, and that in every large establish-
ment doing a variety of work all four of these plans can and should
be used at the same time. Three of these systems were in use at the
Bethlehem Steel Company when the writer left there and the fourth
would have soon been started if he had remained/

Now, support for the idea that Scientific Management takes
from workmen their skill seemingly is lent by this further
quotation from what he wrote descriptive of his work at
Bethlehem:

The full possibilities of functional foremanship, however, will
not have been realized until almost all of the machines in the shop
are run by men who are of smaller calibre and attainments, and who
are therefore cheaper than those required under the old system. The
adoption of standard tools, appliances, and methods throughout the
shop, the planning done in the planning room and the detailed
instructions sent from this department, added to the direct help re-
ceived from the four executive bosses, permit the use of comparatively
cheap men even on complicated work. Of the men in the machine
shop of the Bethlehem Steel Company engaged in running the rough-
ing machines, and who were working under the bonus system when
the writer left them, about 95 per cent were handy men trained
up from laborers. And on the finishing machines, working on bonus,
about 25 per cent were handy men.

To fully understand the importance of the work which was
being done by these former laborers, it must be borne in mind that a
considerable part of their work was very large and expensive. The
forgings which they were engaged in roughing and finishing weighed
frequently many tons. Of course they were paid more than laborer's
wages, though not as much as skilled machinists. The work in this
shop was most miscellaneous in its nature.^

^ Ibid.y p. 80. ^ S/wp Management, p. 105.

130 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Obviously no management can be scientific as it permits
work to be done by men having more skill than the work calls
for. And it may be said also that, regardless of the wages
he gets, a man cannot be permanently happy in his work as
it fails to call for all the skill and wit with which he may be
endowed. Let us, however, try to give a categorical answer
to the question as to whether there was not less call for skill
on the part of those Bethlehem machinists as Taylor developed
his functional principle.

We are told specifically that of the men there " engaged
in running the roughing machines, and who were working
under the bonus system when the writer [Taylor] left them,
about 95 per cent were handy men trained up from laborers,"
while of those " on the finishing machines, working on bonus,
about 25 per cent were handy men." Taking the fine, finish-
ing cuts naturally requires more skill than taking the prelim-
inary roughing cuts. Hence the far greater percentage of
former laborers on the roughing machines.

Disregarding for the time being the distinction between the
finishing machines and the roughing, we may point out that
the success Taylor had in training laborers to operate these
machines exhibits one of the phenomena of specialization. To
specialize is to concentrate 3 and anybody can learn more or less
readily to do unsurpassably well that one thing upon which he
concentrates, provided, of course, he is not in the beginning
disqualified for it by something in his mentality or physique.

The way Taylor specialized the work of operating those
Bethlehem metal-cutting machines was, in the main, by re-
moving from it such elements of planning as had been bound
up in it, and leaving it the one thing of execution. Where, for
example, the machinist had had, with more or less help from
his foreman, to plan out his combination of feed and speed,
he now received a card telling him exactly what feed and
speed to take.

SHOP METHODS AND MECHANISMS 131

Now, planning can be called more skilful work than execu-
tion. It demands a higher order of intellectual activity. In
this sense, then, Taylor made the work of operating those
machines a thing calling for less skill. Strictly speaking, his
removal of the element of planning is largely theoretical. It
is to be borne in mind that, under the old lack of system, the
workmen got more or less help from their foremen, and that
the great majority of them did not even attempt to plan their
work, but simply followed the methods laid down by their
foreman, or were established by the few more skilful work-
men, or were just customary, or were such as suited their
fancy. Indeed, when it came to determining the best combina-
tion of feed and speed, what the foremen and the best work-
men in the place used was not so much judgment as pure
guess-work J since so far from attempting to estimate the
relative values of the various factors entering into their prob-
lem, they had only the haziest notion of what those factors
were. But let us put the darkest possible construction on the
Taylorizing of that shop, and say that the planning element
it removed from the work of operating the machines was in
every respect actual and real.

Here looms up the fact that the whole object of separating
the planning from the execution was to improve both. If this
had not been accomplished, the separation would not have been
scientific, would not have been practical. As a matter of fact,
this object was accomplished. Thus if the operation of those
machines became work calling for less skill in the sense that
there was removed from it the planning element, it at the
same time, as plain execution, became work requiring more
skill; work requiring much greater manual and mental dex-
terity; work of a greatly improved technic; work calling for
a decidedly higher order of these qualities of application and
industry that lie at the root of all skill and knowledge and
character and progress.

132 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Thus it will be evident that, with every wish to return a
categorical answer to the question as to whether Taylor's sys-
tem removed the skill from the work of those Bethlehem
machinists, the answer hardly can be a plain yes or no. In a
certain, hardly real sense, it did. On the other hand, in a
sense that is very real, it, far from removing skill, added it.

But now let us see what was the effect of all this on the
human beings in that shop. And here we have the important
thing — not the work -per se^ but its effect upon the worker.

Some men whose years mainly were behind them could not
adapt themselves to the new methods. When at length the
high-speed tools were introduced, this of itself worried some
of the old men into quitting j they could not stand seeing
the machines going at the speed which these tools made feasi-
ble. If it was unfortunate that these men had to go, it was
not so ruthless as it may seem. Taylor did not play the part
of a bull even in a machine shop. It is to be considered that
the changes he wrought in that shop were very gradual, ex-
tending as they did over a period of three years. There also
is the fact that when he said that at the time of his leaving
Bethlehem " about 95 per cent of the roughing-machine opera-
tives were handy men trained up from laborers," he referred
only to those " who were working under the bonus system."
Even at the end of three years, he had not got all those men
working on bonus by any means. Many of the older men
still were left to operate their machines in the old way.

As it was developed by Gantt after he left Bethlehem, the
task and bonus system was made to provide not only a definite
reward for finishing a task in the time allotted, but extra
rewards for those who could do still better. It will be seen
that this made task and bonus practically equivalent to piece
workj about the only difference being that under task and
bonus the worker was assured of his day rate, or what is in
effect a minimum wage. Early at Bethlehem it proved that

SHOP METHODS AND MECHANISMS 133

as the Gantt system permitted of this fixing of a regular day
rate, it fitted in beautifully with some of the special require-
ments of the shop. It being a miscellaneous shop, there was
call at irregular intervals for especially skilful and therefore
unusually high-priced mechanics. Frequently there were long
waits between these special jobsj and in referring to this
Taylor said:

During such periods these men must be provided with work
which is ordinarily done by less efficient, lower-priced men, and if
a proper piece price has been fixed on this work it would naturally
be a price suited to the less skilful men, and therefore too low for
the men in question. The alternative is presented of trying to com-
pel these especially skilled men to work for a lower price than they
should receive, or of fixing a special higher piece price for the work.
Fixing two prices for the same piece of work, one for the man who
usually does it and a higher price for the higher grade man, always
causes the greatest feeling of injustice and dissatisfaction in the
man who is discriminated against. With Mr. Gantt's plan, the
less skilled workman would recognize the justice of paying his
more experienced companion regularly a higher rate of wages by
the day, yet when they are both working on the same kind of work
each man would receive the same extra bonus for doing the full
day's task. Thus, with Mr. Gantt's system, the total day's pay of the
higher classed man would be greater than that of the less skilled man,
even when on the same work, and the latter would not begrudge
it to him. We may say that the difference is one of sentiment,
yet sentiment plays an important part in all our lives; and sentiment
is particularly strong in the workman when he believes a direct in-
justice is being done him.^

From this it will appear that those mechanics who really
had any ability to think things out for themselves still found
suitable employment and pay. And it would appear that
this will always be the case. The trouble usually is, not to find

''■ S/iop Management^ p. 79.

134 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

work for these men, but to find the men for the work. But
the great opportunity for the superior workmen at Bethlehem
came as from time to time men were picked from the ranks to
become functional foremen and to fill positions in the planning
department. And here again this system proved to be a great
eliminator of blufF. If a man actually could plan, if he really
had any initiative, any real capacity for leadership, here verily
was his opportunity to prove it, to exercise his faculty, and
to develop.

As this system eliminated bluff, it demoted as well as pro-
moted. Men who were making a bluff at the finishing ma-
chines were put on the roughing machines. Did any of these
cases, however, represent a real demotion? It is to be
doubted 5 for as a man was put on the work for which he was
suited, he had an opportunity to become first-class at it.
Throughout the establishment, the movement, in its real
tendency, was onward and upward for all. At least it was for
all those who had it in them to go on and upward. And this
brings us to the fact that as vacancies were left at those
Bethlehem machines by men who were promoted and by those
who could or would not adapt themselves to the new order,
these vacancies largely were filled by common laborers care-
fully selected and trained.

It would appear that Taylor's blunt statement of his success
in getting common laborers to fill the places of trained me-
chanics chilled many a professional and amateur friend of
labor. For what these people usually mean by "labor" has
been well defined as " that minority of actual workers who are
organized for the effective exercise of power in trades unions,
and who are, in fact, an aristocracy of those who labor, having
special skill, special rules of their own, special advantages by
their organization, and having special legal privileges over the
rest of the population."

But there at the bottom are those who, sans organization,

SHOP METHODS AND MECHANISMS 135

skill, voice, vision, and hope, toil for an hourly or daily wage.
Tragically neglected. Their existence as human beings ig-
nored. Viewed with contempt and tyrannized over by none
more than their " aristocratic " fellows, who would monopolize
the skill. To such men, at that Bethlehem which is not in
Judea but in Pennsylvania, at length appeared a Fred Taylor.
He spoke to them in a way they easily could understand. A
profane, imperious way. But not an arrogant, despotic, lofty,
or contemptuous way. A semi-humorous or joking way. A
way which carried a smile on firm lips, and a mischievous
twinkle in a keen eye. A strong, knowing, human way.

Out in the yard, as we have seen, he took the pig-iron
handlers and the shovelers, and gave them something to work
for, something to look forward toj gave them each day a
definite task carrying a definite reward. He lifted their work
out of the ruck and the muckj lit it up with a ray from the
realm of pure intellect. This is not just spinning language.
This is the statement of a fact. It is a fact of the utmost
practical importance that to make anything the subject of
thought is to raise it.

But now we see that Taylor's work with those men did
not stop there. From among the common laborers in yard
and works he picked out young men qualified to go on up,
young men with faculties they never had had a chance to
develop and exercise. He took them to the machines. Like
all the other men whose years were mainly before them, they
were mightily interested in the new way of running those
machines. "Look at the damn thing go! " "Look at 'er
peelin' off them chips! " Not only the high speed was inter-
esting, but the exactness. Just this depth of cut, just this
feed, just this speed — that will do the trick. The one best
way!

He took those young common laborers to the machines.
He treated them as individuals 3 surrounded them with

136 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

teachers} trained them up in the best ways of doing things j
gave them skill} instilled in them habits of application and
industry} developed their earning power} enabled them to
draw wages which, if not as high as the more experienced
machinists got, were as high as those machinists earned under
the old order. Surely there really was nothing in all this that
need chill anyone.

The documents he left show the progress he made at Beth-
lehem in connection with various details of his mechanism.
Here his instruction card was worked up into approximately its
present form. Here he made his first attempt to apply to
tools the mnemonic system of classification and symbolization
he previously had been able to apply only to stores and ac-
counts.^ Also he here made his first attempt to standardize
all forged cutting tools, and to devise standard stores-room
and tool-room bins. Verily no detail was too small for him
to deal with in his effort to make everything work together
smoothly and in the one best way. For the first time his
stores-issue slip was made the same size as his time card (the
famous 4i X 44), so that it readily could be put away in the
same file. As standard for all printed forms he adopted a
plain Gothic type, and for the ruling of all forms substituted,
as being easier on the eye, brown and green ink for the old
red and blue.

Here also, for the first time, appeared his time card, with
the in and out time stamped in the upper left hand corner,
and the order number or charge in the upper right,^ and here
appeared the first evidence of his late and leave early slips.
The men were required to sign these latter slips so that the

^ His first printed mnemonic classification of accounts appeared at Bethle-
hem, as well as the first draft of the present standard sheet for working up
relative cost numbers for machines and other work places.

^ There still were places on this time card for more than one job, whereas
Taylor ultimately adopted the practice of having a new card for every job
and for every day. " When you start something," says Barth, " it takes a
long time to sec all its consequences."

SHOP METHODS AND MECHANISMS 137

management could prove a late arrival or early departure in
case the man himself failed to remember. Apparently
Taylor's precautionary measures were infinite j and at such a
large works as Bethlehem he found it practical to have an
" attendance checker," or a man whose duty it was to see
whether all the men reported in actually were inj it being a
frequent occurrence for men to skip out again soon after
their arrival. It is plain that this was another manifestation
of Taylor's " exception principle." As he saw it, the im-
portant thing to know was, not who was present, but who was
absent j the man present and on time being no trouble to him-
self or any one else. Always he threw the " red tape "
around the exceptional.

Once more at Bethlehem order of work slips for each
machine were hung up on a shop bulletin board and revised
daily. Technicians will be particularly interested in the fact
that Taylor also had at Bethlehem a balance of work sheet, or
a mechanism designed to show instantly, accurately, and at any
moment the work ahead for each machine. As this mechan-
ism enabled the management to tell what was the still avail-
able or unapportioned productive capacity of the equipment
up to any stated time, its importance should be evident even to
the layman. It was Taylor's habit to copy things that he
found good as he came across themj and the material he left
shows that the form which represented the fundamental idea
of his balance of work sheet was obtained by him at the
Sellers plant when he was conducting his experiments there
in the winter of 1894-95. The general idea had failed to
work at the Sellers plant for reasons too technical for us to
enter into herej and though Taylor saw how it could be made
effective, this proved to be one of those refinements of mechan-
ism that he never quite succeeded in getting anyone to adopt
or work properly.

What the forms he used at Bethlehem show in general is

138 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

that his planning department there was developed imperfectly.
Though he was steadily moving in the direction of the in-
tensive control of all the methods, implements, materials,
and general conditions, he was able to realize this control only
in part. It has been brought out that the larger part of the
transfer of the yard, labor from day work to piece work was
made during the last six months of his three-years' stay with
this company J and the fact is that at the end of these three
years, or in the spring of 1901, he just was beginning to get
results in the machine shop. True, the results he was getting
in that spring were brilliant. Says Barth in speaking of the
final solution of the slide-rule problem and of the installation
of Gantt's bonus system:

Inside of a comparatively short time this led to that most astonish-
ing increase in production which at that time was the wonder of all
visitors to the works, and which was partly due to the high-speed
tools, and partly to the scientific methods employed in their use on
machines that had been rebuilt and respeeded to meet the new condi-
tions, in connection with the reward to the workmen who properly
cooperated in the whole matter.

Brilliant results surely. But just as Scientific Management
was coming into being at Bethlehem, it was brought to a haltj
that taking place which long had been threatening.

CHAPTER XI

THE OVERTHROW

LOOKING over the reports that Taylor kept sending to
Linderman throughout the years 1898 and 1899, you
get a sense of one of those nightmares in which a man
struggles and struggles with the odds all against him.

These are the years that many fix upon as marking the time
when American industry in general began to awake to the value
of scientific methods, at least in connection with such things
as chemistry, metallurgy, and the designing of machinery j
and if we accept it as the fact that this general awakening was
then only in its incipience, it would seem that the Bethlehem
Steel Company was exceptionally, even remarkably, liberal
with Taylor in permitting him to spend money in experiment-
ing. Undoubtedly this can be ascribed to the influence of
Joseph Wharton, with his early recognition of the dollars-
and-cents value of science.

Liberality in one direction, however, can go hand in hand
with narrowness in another j and the sad part of it is that men
who can be liberal in expenditures for such things as physical
improvements seem to be more numerous than those who can
be liberal in dealing with their fellow human beings. It is
when it comes to paying money to others that men, apparently,
have their greatest difficulty in visualizing what the giving
may return.

We have seen something of the struggle Taylor had to com-
mit the directors of the Bethlehem Company to the principle
of exceptional wages for exceptional work. His subsequent ex-
perience showed that, however much heart they may have had

139

140 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

in subscribing to this principle as it was applied to the work-
men, they scarcely had any heart in it at all when it came
to the works officers.

In May, 1899, Taylor appealed to Linderman to increase
the salaries of such men as Maunsel White, E. P. Earle,
James Kellogg, and Joseph Welden, none of whom, it will
be observed, had been brought in by him, all having been for
some time in the employ of the company when he came. In
support of his appeal, Taylor said:

The writer is confident that any increase in salary which you may
give these men will be returned to you many times over in the
increase in their efficiency, as well as that of other men who will
be induced to follow them.

The greatest need at present in your shop is that of more men
like Kellogg and Welden. We have several men in the department
who are developing, and who in a year or two will be available for
work of this kind. It is, however, difficult to get men of the proper
calibre from outside of the Works, for the reason that the market
value of such men is from $3.50 to $5.00 per day, and when
the writer suggests bringing any such men into the Works, he is met
by the objection that to pay any such wages would be demoralizing
to the men already in your employ.

Again in October, 1899, Taylor besought Linderman to
increase the salaries, not only of such men as Davenport,
Barth, and Gantt, but also of such old employees as John
Leibert and Archibald Johnston. This time he went at Lin-
derman hammer and tongs, saying:

During the past six months, eight men have given their entire
time and four men part of their time to assisting the writer in his
efforts to improve the organization of your Works and increase
its output, and during this time five of these men (nearly one-half)
have offered their resignations, in each case because they were offered
larger salaries than they were paid by your Company. One of the
remaining men has twice been offered by other Works a larger

THE OVERTHROW 141

salary than he is receiving, and both times declined with the object
of gaining further experience here. . . .

Unless adequate steps are taken to correct the above trouble it is
an extravagance on your part to pay the w^riter the wages which
he is receiving, and the writer on his part cannot afford to waste
his time and risk his reputation in training good men at your expense,
merely to have them taken away and used by other Companies.

As an illustration of the above, I would call your attention to
the fact that the resignation of Mr. C. P. Coleman throws back
the work of the writer in introducing a Cost and Accounting System
at least six months. . . .

You will remember that when the writer first entered your employ,
he predicted that as long as your Works had the reputation of being
poorly managed you could fix the salaries of your leading men at
practically any figure which you chose, but that as soon as your
plant gained the reputation of being well managed other manufac-
turers would look toward you for their Superintendents and Assistants,
and it would be necessary to pay even more than the average salaries
to keep your head men. This even now has almost come true, and
will apply not only while the writer is in your employ but after he
has left. Since your Works, unlike many even of the larger Steel
Works, is not engaged upon a special product of small variety, but,
on the contrary, you do work of a great variety and turn out a
highly wrought product, so that the training which your leading
men receive makes them useful to a large number of other manu-
facturers.

These appeals were not entirely in vain. Earth's salary,
for example, was raised five hundred dollars a year, which
brought it back to what it had been when he left Sellers. But
what was accomplished was indeed with a struggle, and the
way Taylor's recommendations were, after a long delay,
partly met and partly disregarded has the appearance of hav-
ing been inspired by a policy deliberately calculated to thwart
him as much as possible while not opposing him openly and
directly.

142 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

It would appear that Linderman found from the beginning
that every time he let things come to a direct issue between
him and Taylor, it was he, Linderman, who had to yield.
We have seen what happened when he attempted to check the
systemizing of the yard labor. And here is a case that prob-
ably was for him even more unpleasant:

In September, 1898, Taylor submitted a report outlining
the cost and accounting system he was prepared to install. As
the ideas in this connection which he held at this time have
historical interest, we quote from his report as follows:

It is evident that the system of bookkeeping in each large manu-
facturing works presents a problem distinct from that in almost any
other establishment, since the methods of manufacture, the nature
of the product and the information called for by the officers of the
Company differ in each case to such a great extent. The bookkeeping
system must in each case, therefore, be so arranged that it fits into
the piece work plan and the general method of running the works
at one end, and at the same time it must be especially adapted to
giving the various daily and monthly reports and information called
for at the other end.

The method of bookkeeping which the writer believes to be the
best is in general the modern railroad system of accounting adapted
and modified to suit the manufacturing business.

The following are some of its characteristic features.

The books and records should all be planned chiefly with a view
of obtaining the information which they are desired to record,
with the greatest ease and dispatch. They should especially be so
arranged that a daily statement can be readily copied from them,
showing the summary of all the transactions of the previous day,
and a complete and detailed balance of cash, as well as all of the
active accounts, such as " accounts receivable " and " payable," " notes
receivable " and " payable," purchase orders unfilled, stores, materials,
and merchandise in stock, and sales, etc. It is most desirable not only
that the books should contain the needed information, but that they
should be completely closed and balanced each month, and that all of

THE OVERTHROW 143

this information should be copied on to exhibits of the proper form
and then be passed over from the accounting department to the
various heads of departments who are to use it.

The system should insure an accurate determination of the cost
of all goods manufactured by logically and exactly distributing at
the end of each month the total expenses of the month, including
such items as interest, depreciation, taxes, insurance, as w^ell as of
the more direct expenses, onto the articles of manufacture which
were worked up during the month; and complete comparative cost
statements for all articles completed during the month should be
copied from the books on to suitable exhibit sheets and handed over
to the proper officers of the Company.

Orders for work of all kinds should be written, not verbal.

Labor and material returns should be written, so far as possible
by the workmen themselves on loose cards and should be entered
without transcribing directly on to the final record.

The system should be such that no error can be made which will
not be indicated from the books themselves within a few days after
it occurs.

In case of an error, the books themselves should indicate a com-
paratively small section of the accounts in which the error is to be
found.

The system should be so planned as to render the temptation to
steal, by those handling money and values, both incoming and out-
going, as small as possible, and also to render the complicity of at
least two employees necessary to accomplish theft, and in case of a
theft or error to enable the auditor or comptroller to detect and trace
same readily and rapidly.

The system should leave the chief officers of the Company abso-
lutely free from the detail bookkeeping and from the necessity of
signing more than one or two checks per week, while at the same
time keeping them well posted at the beginning of each day regarding
the transactions of the previous day and all obligations to be met
in the near future.

In case the volume of business is very great, or in case of an
emergency when a statement is required in a very short time, it
should in all cases be possible for two or more bookkeepers or clerks

144 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

to work on any section of the books at the same time without
interfering with one another and yet hold each man responsible for
an error in case one is made.

After this general statement of what he was prepared to
do, he added: "The writer wishes it distinctly understood
that in case you decide to adopt any other system of accounting,
he will gladly cooperate by adapting the piece work records
and returns to conform to your new plan." If, however,
they decided to let him Install his system, certain things would
have to be understood. And In plain English he wrote:

Inasmuch as the writer will be blamed for any defects in the
system and his reputation will suffer in case of failure in any respect,
he must insist upon the acceptance of the following conditions, before
starting upon this work.

First, that you will assure me that it is your intention to intro-
duce this entire system of accounting into your Works and Office
and give it a fair trial for say three months after it is in operation
before altering it.

Second, that while the writer will be glad to consult with any
of the employees of your Company regarding the details of the
system, in case of a difference of opinion, the writer's decision must
be final.

In December, 1898, three months after Taylor submitted
his report, LInderman formally accepted It. Then, in the
following May, occurred this Incident:

Preparatory to putting Into effect the voucher method of
settling accounts payable that was a part of his system, Taylor
directed one of the heads of the bookkeeping department to
rule up a voucher blank. This head bookkeeper opined that
the voucher method Involved too much work, and advocated a
method of his own. Taylor listened to him, but continued to
believe that the voucher method was the one to adopt, and
told him to go ahead and rule up that blank. This the book-

THE OVERTHROW 145

keeper declined to do without a direct order from the president
of the company. Taylor replied that full authority to decide
in such matters had been conferred on him by Linderman.
" We'll see," said the bookkeeper j and went off to Linderman,
to return triumphantly with the news that Mr. Linderman
fully agreed with him, and also had expressed the opinion that
there were many other objectionable things in Mr. Taylor's
system.

So Linderman received a visit from Taylor. If, said
Taylor, Mr. Linderman's action was not in direct violation of
their written understanding, perhaps he would explain wherein
it was not. Whatever difficulty he had in explaining, Mr.
Linderman refused to direct the bookkeeper to rule up the
blank. All right, said Taylor j this was where the work of
introducing the new accounting system would stop. And it
did stop — that is, for about ten weeks. And if it then was
resumed, it was because Mr. Linderman then issued an order
to the bookkeeper to go ahead and rule up that blank.

We, of course, must not be blind to Linderman's side of it.
He was not an engineer. He had an imperfect understanding
of the principles of organization. And even as a financier he
was not a Joseph Wharton. He could not help but be made
nervous by Taylor's expenditures and their slowness in bring-
ing results. Taylor's very personality was fearsome to him.
And it was not only himself he had to consider. He had to
meet the fears of the other directors of the company who
were of Bethlehem. But this was not all. Here are the words
of a gentleman who is still connected with the company:

" Mr. Linderman thought Mr. Taylor was employed to
introduce piece work and help us in general to increase our
production J but what Mr. Taylor did was to go out into the
works and start a revolution."

That he was bent on revolutionizing the methods of the
works, Taylor tried to make clear before he started in. It

146 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

is evident, however, that when the gentleman we have quoted
spoke of a revolution, he used the word in the sense of a rebel-
lion or uprising. And though this uprising was not among the
workmen, but was confined to heads of departments and other
officials, it must be admitted that this did not make things
much easier for Linderman.

Time and again his operating chiefs foregathered with him
to predict dire happenings if that man Taylor was not got rid
of. And then this same man Taylor would appear unto him,
to tell him what was what and give him " what for." Caught
between these two fires, hardly knowing what it 'was all
about, wanting very much to get rid of the man Taylor, but
unable to find an excuse that that man of power, Joseph
Wharton, might be expected to accept as valid, Robert P.
Linderman indeed was in an unfortunate position.

Sympathize with him though we may, the essence of this
situation is not to be overlooked. Let us consider what Taylor
there was contending for. Essentially it was this: that the
government of the Bethlehem Company cease to be capricious,
arbitrary, despotic} that every man in the establishment, high
and low, submit himself to law. A far cry down the cen-
turies since the days of Latimer and Melville with their
demand of one law for both kings and scullions. A greatly
different scene. Yet in Frederick Taylor, the descendant of
those Puritans, the old spirit flaming up anew} as bold as
ever, and as stern, as uncompromising, and as imperious as
ever.

If Linderman was unfortunately placed, so was Taylor in
the respect that it was Wharton who held him responsible for
results, while it was from Linderman he had to get his
authority. Even in his capacity as a mechanical engineer,
he often had to disclaim responsibility. In view of what he
did at Midvale, he had some reason to expect people to regard
him as an expert on steamhammersj but what happened when

THE OVERTHROW 147

a hammer was erected at Bethlehem may be gathered from
this letter he addressed in December, 1899, to Davenport:

You will remember that the writer informed you and also Mr.
Linderman, the first time he saw the foundation for the new 6-ton
hammer which has recently been started, that the foundation as built
by your Engineering Department was directly the opposite to that
which was recommended by the writer. The writer predicted that
the anvil would shift on this foundation probably within one or two
years. Unhappily this misfortune has already occurred within two
weeks after starting the hammer, the anvil having moved (according
to the statement of Mr. John Leibert) about one inch already in a
northerly direction. ...

The anvil of the Midvale hammer, designed together with its
foundation by the writer, and which design was recommended for your
6-ton hammer, has been in use for about ten years. This hammer
has been subject to continuous and exceedingly severe duty and has not
shifted its position in the least. . . . Inasmuch as the writer was
summoned by telegraph about a year and a half ago to advise regard-
ing the design of this plant, and since the plant in a superficial way
bears resemblance to the type of plant which was designed and
patented by the writer, he regards it as but just to himself that the
above disclaimer should be brought to the attention of the ofi!icials
and directors of your company.

Through the engineering department much was done to
thwart Taylor, whether deliberately or not. In May, 1898,
he asked that in all the shops there be installed pumps, tanks,
and drains designed to give every machine a copious supply
of soda water. Just a year later he was compelled to report:
"Out of 238 machines in your shop, only 12 have been
equipped with soda water since the arrival of the writer at
your works, and all of these have been equipped with tem-
porary supply barrels and rubber pipes placed close to the
machines without the aid of your Engineering Department."

148 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Likewise it was only by dint of repeated pleas that he could
get the shafting speeded up.

All along a false situation, it began, in the winter of 1900-
190 1, to take on more and more of the aspect of an impossible
one. It already has been indicated that Taylor's course was no
more ideal than was that of his Puritan forebears j just as they,
by reason of the heroic scale on which their lives were cast,
suffered in full measure from the defects of their qualities,
and were prone to excesses, so it was with him. True, he
hardly could have avoided giving offense at Bethlehem if he
had had all the sweetness of a seventh-degree saint j but, from
his Midvale days on, he had been too ready to believe that
people were opposed to him, and too much inclined to act in
the spirit of " he who is not with me is against me," and at
Bethlehem these defects of his immense sincerity and earnest-
ness were exhibited at their worst. Thus he antagonized where
he might have conciliated, made enemies where he might have
made friends. Most men resent being forced to take sides.

Curiously enough, he sometimes offended when he deliber-
ately set out to be tactful. If the perfection of tact lies in
its concealment, then was his tact, at least in some cases, de-
cidedly imperfect. It spoke too much of sophistication and
not enough of spontaneity j and it all came, presumably, from
expecting trouble where none really was to be expected, or,
at all events, from exaggerating the amount. When you are
made to feel that a man is handling you with gloves on be-
cause he is fully expecting you to behave unhandsomely, you
are not likely to be impressed.

On the face of it, it would seem that, from May, 189.8, on
throughout the year 1899, he did about everything a human
being could through the power of precept and example to
instill his philosophy of management in Bethlehem's high
officials, and that it was only as he found that the root of
the matter simply was not in them and could not be put into

THE OVERTHROW 149

them that he dropped the role of the teacher and, ceasing
to argue with them, began to tell them. Even so, the charge
may lie against him that again at Bethlehem he failed to
allow men sufficient time to get revolutionized mentally, and
that he there repeatedly exhibited the old Puritan vice of
intolerance.

However, without any desire to gloss over Taylor's human
failings, one may suggest this: that as his intolerance was
not of ignorance fer se^ but of ignorance refusing to learn,
ignorance aggressive and bent on remaining in high places and
bluffing — why then there probably will be those who will
applaud his intolerance as something which the world needs a
great deal more of, and that quickly.

A gentleman tells us that, calling upon Taylor one day at
the Bethlehem works, he found him engaged in a lively
altercation. His opponent, a works official, was a big and
brawny Pennsylvania Dutchman j physically he stood in rela-
tion to Fred Taylor as a heavyweight to a light. Yet the
incident was brought to a close by Taylor's speaking sub-
stantially as follow: " Now, look here, I don't want to hear
anything more from you. You haven't got any brains, you
haven't got any ability — you don't know anything. You
owe your position entirely to your family pull, and you know
it. Go on and work your pull if you want to, but keep out
of my way, that's all."

A fairly intolerant speech, thisj yet some sympathy with it
may be felt even by those not deeply sunk in original sin.
And this on the basis that the world has been too patient with
ignorance and stupidity in its rulers, and that the cure for
ignorance and stupidity is that very thing — intolerance.

Lastly it must be recognized that if Taylor's human failings
added some fuel to the fire of opposition he encountered at
Bethlehem, it was not his failings that started the fire, but his
high, valiant, and righteous aim to get every man in that

150 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

establishment to abandon his individual ways for scientific,
to stop acting capriciously and arbitrarily and subscribe to a
reign of law. Let us concede that it was an aim too high,
a dream too bold. Even as you make this concession must
come the recognition that, in struggling after it, Taylor was
playing to the top notch of his ability his appointed part in
the world.

Hardly ever did a man at Bethlehem step out and offer him
open battle. None seemed to have any ambition to try con-
clusions with this " regular wildcat." He had an awful way
of showing an opponent up, of making him look foolish, be-
fore a blow could be struck. Hence the opposition became not
merely " damnably malicious," but underhand, covert — a
thing most exasperating to a man all of whose instincts were
for fighting in the open.^

As time went on, he exhibited a fighting spirit of an in-
tensity almost pathological. Men in his own little group
were shocked by some of his outbursts. " If I know that a
man is going to stab me," he said, " 1*11 stab him first, and
if he hits me once, Pll hit him twice." His orders contin-
ually questioned, and unable to get things carried out as he
wanted them without making a fight for them, he found it
hard to make his calculations in the spirit of cool detachment
essential to engineering success. Made morbidly sensitive to
kicks by his years of taking them, he now and then, to some
extent, appeared to lose his head. Men would come to him
and say: " You have ordered a four-inch belt. Should it
not be three inches? " " Make it four and a half," he would
retort. Question me, do you? Then I'll give you worse
and more of it.

^ In justice to Taylor's opponents it should be said that, in some cases,
the probabilities are that they refrained from offering- him open battle, not
because they were afraid of him, but because they felt that, to stop him, they
would have to kill him, and they were reluctant to go to such a length as that.

THE OVERTHROW 151

Two big mistakes eventually became manifest. He had
planned for the big machine shop a concrete floor with a drain-
age system for carrying o£F the overflow of soda water poured
on the cutting tools j and while, on the whole, it was admirably
done, it was planned very badly for one particular section of
the shop. Then the installation of his special two-speed
countershafts was found to occupy so much overhead room
as to constitute the limitation on the number of machines that
could be placed on the floor, whereas the floor itself should
have constituted the limitation. Confronted by these mistakes,
he accepted the full responsibility for themj he was ready,
in fact, to correct them at his own expense, and would have
done so if things in general had not turned out as they did.

Impossible, beyond a doubt, the situation became in the
spring of 1901. Tales were continually brought to Taylor
that this man and that man had turned against him. The
air was full of rumors, and throughout the establishment there
were subterranean rumblings. For the men of the little
Taylor group it was like working over a volcano. Something
had to happen, and it did.

On March 15, Taylor sent this letter to Philadelphia:

My dear Mr. Wharton:

I would like to talk over with you certain matters connected with
the Bethlehem Steel Company, and will regard it as a favor if you
can name a time and place when you can see me for about half an
hour, and oblige,

Yours very truly

Six days later Taylor received this telegram from Philadel-
phia:

Have decided to visit Bethlehem to-morrow as arranged post-
poning New York. Joseph Wharton.

152 * FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

On April 4, Taylor wrote to Philadelphia as follow:

My dear Mr. Wharton:

As a result of the conversation which the writer recently had
with you and Mr. Stotesbury, I enclose you herewith a copy of a
draft of a letter addressed to Mr. Linderman. I will be very
much obliged to you for any criticisms you may have to offer on the
letter.

What I particularly ask is, that any authority which is given to
me shall not be subject to continual appeals regarding details which
would make rapid progress impossible.

Inasmuch as I must assume the responsibility for the results ob-
tained I must distinctly decline to be one of several experts to make
suggestions regarding the details of the new system of management
and have these suggestions accepted or declined by a third party.

Enough has already been done for you to form an opinion of the
general outline of the system. If, however, as a preliminary to
granting the above authority you wish further information regarding
the system as a whole, or any of its details, I will be very glad to
make any desired explanation either to you or any experts you may
appoint.

I expect to go to Lakewood on Wednesday, April loth, and if
convenient to you would like to hear from you regarding the enclosed
letter before that time.

Wharton did criticize the letter Taylor proposed to send to
Linderman, but his alterations simply were such as were
needed to give the letter a more straightforward arrangement
and to eliminate Taylor's studied method of referring to him-
self in the third person. As thus edited, the letter read:

I was employed by your Company some three years ago to intro-
duce a new system of management, accounting, etc., into your works.

My progress in this work has on the whole been slow. One of
the chief causes being that I have lacked the authority to see that
my directions were properly carried out.

THE OVERTHROW 153

There are many minor details of your plant which must be
modified in order to successfully introduce my system of manage-
ment, and it is obviously necessary that I be given the requisite
authority to see that these details are arranged in harmony vi^ith the
new system.

As an illustration of the kind of details referred to, I would
mention all items affecting the care of implements and tools used by
workmen, the quantity to be kept on hand, and the storage and issuing
from tool rooms, etc., the design of tool rooms and store rooms,
and the equipment of the small local ojffices; the grouping, resetting,
and speeding of all machines in the machine shops, etc.

I do not want any authority in any matters except those imme-
diately affecting my system of management and accounting, but I
respectfully request that the various officers of the Company be in-
structed to carry out all orders which may be given them by me in
relation to those subjects.

This letter was sent to Linderman. Then, thinking that
everything would turn out all right, Taylor went off for a
little golf at Lakewood, even as he wrote Wharton that he
expected to do.

He had a pleasant time of it at Lakewood for a week or so.
Upon his return to his office at the steel works in Bethlehem,
he found this on his desk:

Mr. F. W. Taylor,

South Bethlehem, Pa.
Dear Sir:

I beg to advise you that your services will not be required
by this Company after May ist, 1901.

Yours truly,

[Signed] Robt. P. Linderman,

President.

A gentleman who at that time was associated with Taylor
writes us as follows with reference to the foregoing letter:

154 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

He [Taylor] at once went to Philadelphia to find out from Mr.
Wharton what this meant. Whether he had an interview with Mr.
Wharton or not, I am unable to say, but he did not succeed in
getting any satisfaction whatever from Mr. Wharton, and there that
chapter seems to have closed.

Both Wharton and Linderman are dead, and apparently
there is no one else who can tell exactly and authoritatively
what passed between them while Taylor was at Lakewood.
This much, however, we can report:

It will be remembered that the English rights to the
Taylor-White invention were purchased in 1900, at a price of
$100,000, by the firm of Vickers' Sons & Maxim. Early in
the year of 1901 — that is, for some time previous to the
sending of the Taylor-Wharton letter to Linderman — ru-
mors were current in Bethlehem that this great English firm
was trying to buy out the Bethlehem Steel Company. Then,
after Taylor left Bethlehem, another rumor became current
there to the effect that, while Taylor was at Lakewood, Lin-
derman advised Wharton that the prospect had become bright
of their being able to sell the Bethlehem Company to Vickers'
Sons & Maxim at a price that all those then interested in the
ownership of the Bethlehem Company would find most at-
tractive. However, in order that this deal should be success-
fully put through, it was strictly necessary that Wharton cease
to back Taylor against Linderman and the other officials there
in Bethlehem.

As it turned out, the Bethlehem Company was sold a few
months later 5 that is, in August, 1901. The purchaser, how-
ever was not Vickers' Sons & Maxim, but Charles M. Schwab.

If they ever had any actual existence, it would appear that
no one knows what became of the negotiations with the
English firm. And, indeed, it is idle to speculate about this.
Idle also it would seem to be to speculate as to whether the

THE OVERTHROW 155

Bethlehem Company could have been sold to anyone at a re-
munerative price at that time if it had not been for the world-
wide prominence this company received in large measure
through the activities of its employee, Frederick W. Taylor.

We must make plain that what here has been reported as
passing between Wharton and Linderman is merely a rumor.
All we know for certain is that, in consequence of what passed
between them, Taylor was suddenly, as one of his associates
has playfully expressed it, " thrown to the wolves."

CHAPTER XII

AFTER TAYLOR LEFT

THOUGH in Linderman's curt letter he was told
that his services would not be required after May i,
and, that as we shall see later in this chapter, he specif-
ically stated in after years that he left Bethlehem " in the
spring of 1901," and sometime in April, he continued to
appear at the works until about the first of July, and it is the
memory of Barth and others that not until then did he tell any
of the men in his group that he was going. How this is to
be explained we do not know.

With his departure, all the men whom he had brought in
were told they would have to go also, and in addition to them
Davenport was dismissed. The general explanation made to
these men was that the company had nothing against them
personally, but that they had been too closely associated with
" that man Taylor." At the same time that these dismissals
were ordered, other of the works officials were informed that
their salaries were to be reduced.

The date fixed for the dismissals to take efi'ect was the
last of July. Before this date arrived it was discovered that
perhaps after all they would need to retain Barth. So to
him was made this magnanimous offer: despite the closeness
of his association with Taylor, they would keep him on,
provided he would consent to have his salary reduced to what
it had been before Taylor had had it raised. No, Barth saidj
he was looking for more money, not less. He agreed, how-
ever, to stay on for a month, run the experimental lathe, and
drill in the new methods any two men whom they might select.

156

I

AFTER TAYLOR LEFT 157

Barth, of course, was a free agent, but this action of his was
fully endorsed by Taylor. Neither he nor Taylor had any
interest in leaving the company in a hole.

It is to be observed that the date fixed for the dismissal of
the Taylor men and for the salary reductions of other of the
works officials coincided with the date when Charles M.
Schwab took over the control of the company, but what the
significance of this may be is another thing we do not know.
However, we do have a letter written by Taylor which throws
light on that very much mooted question as to just what
happened to his system at Bethlehem under Schwab's owner-
ship. Some have said that Schwab retained the Taylor
System, while others would have it that as soon as he entered
the works he threw it out bodily.

For many years Taylor himself said absolutely nothing in
this connection. But in February, 1909, there was a strike
at Bethlehem. An uprising this time, not of heads of depart-
ments and other officials, and not even of foremen and gang
bosses, but of the rank and file, of the workmen. As the
trouble was said to have been precipitated by Sunday work,
the Social Service Commission of the Churches of Christ in
America appointed a committee to go to Bethlehem and in-
vestigate. Consisting of the Rev. Charles Stelzle, Dr. Josiah
Strong, and Paul U. Kellogg, this committee eventually re-
ported that the way the Bethlehem Steel Company treated
many of its men was " a disgrace to civilization." Many were
compelled to work twelve hours a day seven days a week.
With regard to wages the committee said that " 6 per cent of
the 9,184 men employed earned less than 18 cents an hour,
or $2.16 for a 12-hour dayj and 31.9 per cent earned less
than 14 cents an hour, or less than $1.68 for a 12-hour
day." Incidentally, the committee severely criticized the
clergymen of Bethlehem for uniting to issue a public state-
ment rebuking the strikers for their unlawful acts, while they

158 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

had not a word to say about the wrongs done the workmen
which brought on the strike.

Now, in 1 9 10, when the report of this committee was
published and widely reprinted. General William Crozier,
then Chief of Ordnance, was employing Barth to help intro-
duce the Taylor System into the arsenal at Watertown, Mas-
sachusetts. Partly due to the aforesaid report and partly to
pressure brought directly to bear on him, General Crozier on
April 1 6 wrote the following letter:

Dear Mr. Taylor:

Have you any explanation of the Bethlehem strike? A committee
of the workmen was in my office the other day, and represented that
their compensation was really very poor, and that they had to work
much overtime with no increase of rate.

I notice from the articles by Mr. Gantt, now appearing in the
Engineering Magazine, that he claims that the Bethlehem Company
have abandoned the method of compensation which you and he intro-
duced at that establishment, and that that is the cause of the dis-
content. How is it to be accounted for that, if the method intro-
duced was a great advantage to the Company, it should have been
abandoned after trial? I have always understood the advantages
claimed to be such that the management could not fail to appreciate
them, once had, and that there never would be any danger of going
back to the old system of compensation, once the new had been tried.

Four days later Taylor sent to Crozier a carefully pre-
pared reply which began as follows:

My dear General:

In answer to your letter of April i6th, regarding the strike at
the Bethlehem Steel Works, I left Bethlehem in the spring of IQOI,'
just about this time nine years ago, and I have never since that time
been inside the works. Therefore, what I have to say regarding
occurrences there since that time comes entirely from information
obtained through talking with other men, and nine-tenths of it not
from those who are employed in the Bethlehem Steel Company, but

AFTER TAYLOR LEFT 159

from men who are more or less familiar with our system of manage-
ment and who have visited the works only for a day or so at a time.
As several of these people, however, agree in stating the facts in the
same way, having visited the works entirely independently and neither
one having been aware of the visit of the other, I think that the
statements which I shall make are probably very close to the truth.
Through your own Ordnance Inspectors, however, stationed at
Bethlehem, I should think you ought to be able to get at the facts
much better than I have been able to through hearsay information.

Here Taylor made an elaborate statement of the " essence "
of his system, and continued:

Now, by means of these three elements, the scientific selection of
the workman, the development of a science, and the intimate, hearty
cooperation between the management and the workman in doing
every piece of work, — there results a very great increase in the out-
put of every man throughout the establishment. When, through this
cooperation, the output of every workman is very largely increased,
it is not only right and just that the workmen should be paid a very
material increase in their wages (say from 30 to 60% higher wages
than other workmen of their kind are receiving in establishments
around them), but it is a fact that they cannot be made to cooperate
in this way for the best interest of their employers without being
paid an extra price.

For this reason, an absolutely essential element of our system of
management is that the workmen shall be paid from 30 to 60%
more than other workmen are getting.

The increased output due to this cooperation enables us to pay
this large increase in wages, and still do work a good deal cheaper
than it can be done under the old system. I want to make it per-
fectly clear that the essence of our system lies in paying high wages to
the workmen, and still have a low labor cost to the management.

Now, to explain the present condition at Bethlehem. If I am
rightly informed, in some departments — particularly in some sections
of some departments — the men are still paid high wages, as they
ought to be under our system of management; that is, when they

i6o FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

perform the tasks which are allotted to them they are paid a material
bonus in addition to their ordinary wages. I do not know whether
this bonus is as large as it ought to be, that is, whether it is from
30 to 60% increase over the ordinary wages, but I have been in-
formed by a good many people that they are paying bonuses to their
workmen in this way. In other departments, however, not only are
no bonuses paid, but the workmen are treated with but very small
consideration. For example, the very occurrence which started the
strike at Bethlehem illustrates the fact that directly the opposite of
the principles of our management were employed, namely, men were
asked to work overtime to almost any extent, without receiving any
additional increase in their compensation per hour.

Now, if you are familiar with Schwab's method of management,
you will realize that he places each department in command of a
separate individual, and that each individual, at the head of his de-
partment, is allowed to use practically whatever methods of man-
aging the men he sees fit, the only check upon this man being that
if he fails to make good in earning money, at the end of the year
his head comes off. Under this plan you will necessarily have, in
the same works, several kinds of management; and this accounts
for the fact which has been asserted that a number of the men in
the Bethlehem Steel Co. are entirely satisfied with their treatment,
while others feel that they are greatly abused.

I think it is quite remarkable that our system should have sur-
vived as well as it appears to have done at the Bethlehem Steel Co.
I think I told you that the moment Schwab took charge of the Bethle-
hem works, in 1901, he ordered our whole system thrown out. He
saw no use whatever in paying premiums for fast work; much less in
having time study men and slide rule men, " supernumeraries," as he
called them, in the works at all. His orders were obeyed, and the out-
put of the large machine shop in the following month fell to about

one-half of what it was before. , who was then in

command, ordered our system to be reinstated. He, however, did not
tell Schwab that he had done so. On the contrary, he led Schwab to
believe that our system had been entirely thrown out. In carrying
out this deceit, for several years the use of our slide rules and time
study, etc., was carried on in the Bethlehem Works without Schwab's

AFTER TAYLOR LEFT i6i

knowledge. The slide rules were operated in a room back of the
kitchen, which Schwab never visited, and all of the slide rule, time
study men, planners, etc., were carried on the payrolls as mechanics;
that is, machinists who were supposed to be working in the shops.
And it is only through an accident that this state of affairs was
finally brought to Schwab's attention. The office of the large machine
shop burnt down some years later, and destroyed all of the slide
rules, and many of the time study records. During the year follow-
ing this fire, the output of the machine shop necessarily fell off to a
tremendous extent, because the mechanism for helping the workmen
to do a big day's work was lacking. They attempted to guess at
what was a proper day's work, as is done in other establishments
under the old system of management, with the result that at the
end of the year practically all of the head men connected with this
department were discharged for incompetence, and a set of men in-
ferior to them were put into their places to run the shop.

This led to the true facts being brought to Schwab's attention,
and from that time forward the slide rules and time study men,
and in fact all of the elements of our system of management, were
practiced openly in the shop. I have been told they have never gotten
back to as efficient a state as they had reached before the fire, but at
any rate, since that time the system has been openly, instead of
secretly, practiced at Bethlehem.

Now, as you know, the knowledge which is obtained from accurate
time study, and also that which comes from the use of slide rules
for running machine tools, is a powerful implement in the hands
of the management, and this implement can be used either for good or
for evil. If it is used in accordance with the fundamental prin-
ciples of our system of management, it trains, develops and helps
the workmen to become skilful and accomplished, and then secures
to them a large extra compensation, all of which makes them the
best of friends with those on the management side, and renders a
strike or a serious disagreement of any kind impossible. On the
other hand, these implements (time study and slide rule, etc.) can
be used as a club to drive the men to do a larger day's work than
other men are doing, with practically little or no increase in pay.
And in this case, instead of making friends of the workmen, they

1 62 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

become the enemies of the management. I have been informed that
in several departments of the Bethlehem Steel Works our methods
have been used as a club, instead of to promote kindly cooperation.

With a man of Schw^ab's type at the head of the v^^orks, I look
upon it as quite remarkable that our methods should have survived
even as well as they have at Bethlehem.

We have in Philadelphia recently had a remarkable opportunity
of comparing the effects of our system of management upon the
men with that of the old type. The Tabor Manufacturing Co.
[where Scientific Management was developed in entire obedience to
Taylor's instructions] has the Baldwin Locomotive Works on three
sides of it. In the next block to it is William Sellers & Co. Within
two blocks are the works of Edwin Harrington & Sons and the
Newton Machine Tool Works. A very considerable percentage of
the men, nearly one half, went out on the sympathetic strike re-
cently from the Baldwin Locomotive Works. 190 odd men left
William Sellers & Co, on the sympathetic strike. One half of the
Newton men and one half of the Harrington men, in round numbers,
went out on the sympathetic strike. Only one man left the works
of the Tabor Manufacturing Company, and he was a recent em-
ploye. And this although great pressure from the outside was brought
to bear upon the Tabor workmen to join the sympathetic strike.
Exactly the same condition prevailed at the works of the Link-Belt
Company [another of the pioneer Scientific Management establish-
ments]. Only one single man, and he a new man, left their em-
ploy on the sympathetic strike. Exceedingly few men left the
employ of the Midvale Steel Works.

This, as you realize, is no accident. It merely demonstrates the
fact that under our system of management the workmen look upon
the company that they are working for as their very best friends,
and it would be next to impossible to make them do anything which
would injure their company.

It is possible for any set of men to build up our system of manage-
ment in any company, if they will only take time enough and pro-
viding they do not lose sight of the very essence of what the system
is, namely, friendly cooperation, and the earnest endeavor to make
both sides more prosperous than before. After such a structure,

AFTER TAYLOR LEFT 163

however, is built up, I do not conceive that there can ever be any
positive assurance that it w^ill last forever. It is exceedingly difficult
to destroy, but if it is placed in the hands of men who deliberately
set about destroying it, they can ultimately succeed in doing so. They
will, however, have great difficulty with their workmen when they
try to destroy it, just as certain sections of the Bethlehem Steel Com-
pany are now having with their workmen when they try to destroy it.
There is, of course, no need to warn you of the necessity of going
slowly when you begin to make changes at the Watertown Arsenal
which affect the amount of work done by and the pay received by
the workmen there. I am very sure, however, that if you will fol-
low Mr. Earth's advice and directions, that you will have practically
no trouble with the men. And after the system is once established
there, I am very certain that any complaint which you may receive
regarding it will not come from the workmen who are working
under it. While it is being introduced you will very likely receive
bitter complaints from many of these men, but not after it is in
operation.

Yours sincerely.

It will be seen that in this letter Taylor answered the
question, which has agitated scores of high-minded and kindly
men and women, as to whether the management mechanism
he developed could not be abused. At Bethlehem some of
his mechanism fell into the hands of men knowing nothing of
the spirit of Scientific Management. But the spirit is the
life, is the thing in itself. Hence Taylor's statement before
the Special House Committee:

I have never said that scientific management could be used for bad.
It is possible to use the mechanism of scientific management for bad,
but not scientific management itself. It ceases to be scientific man-
agement the moment it is used for bad.

Now, we have heard no one assert that the present-day
Bethlehem Steel Corporation has been regenerated through-

1 64 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

out by the spirit of Scientific Management. At the same time
we believe it can safely be averred that no employee of this
company is today the worse ofiF on account of the practice
there of any of the Taylor methods that were salvaged from
the wreck in the spring of 1901. And it must appear, we
think, from his extensive latter-day use of a bonus system,
that in the years which have followed 1901 Mr. Schwab
has learned something.

Taylor's three years at Bethlehem were years of almost
continuous strife. From the account of these years we have
been able to present it may seem that at times the strife was
such as to exhaust his power of self-control. If so, this
must be set over against the fact that never in all this time
did the members of his household have any reason to believe
that his work at the big steel plant involved for him any
particular difficulty or unpleasantness. The only thing was
that whenever his wife suggested their building a home in
Bethlehem, he said no, and said it firmly.

There is reason to believe also that never in his future years
did anyone hear from his lips any complaint of the treatment
he had received. True, it did come out on one occasion that
his hatred of those men of Bethlehem was most enthusiastic.
But it was an entirely impersonal feeling, and one devoid of
malice. Not for anything that they had done to him did he
hate them, but as they had proved stumbling blocks to and
checkers of progress.

In truth, it was not in the power of those men to do him
any personal injury. So far as he personally was concerned,
he left Bethlehem so delighted with what he had achieved
there, so impressed with its general significance, so bent on
following it up and developing it, that the difficulties which
had attended his achievements quickly sank in his mind to
the level of what he called " petty squabbles."

BOOK VI
SERVING THE PUBLIC WITHOUT PAY

Was it thy aim and life-purpose to be filled with good things for thy heroism; to
have a life of pomp and ease, and be what men call "happy" in this world, or
in any other world? I answer for thee deliberately, No. The whole spiritual
secret of the new epoch lies in this, that thou canst answer for thyself, with thy
whole clearness of head and heart, deliberately. No!

My brother, the brave man has to give his Life away. Give it, I advise thee; — thou
does not expect to sell thy life in an adequate manner? What price, for example,
would content thee? The just price of thy Life to thee, — why, God's entire
Creation to thyself, the whole Universe of Space, the whole Eternity of Time,
and what they hold; that is the price which would content thee; that, and if
thou wilt be candid, nothing short of that! It is thy all; and for it thou wouldst
have all. . . . Thou wilt never sell thy Life, or any part of thy Life, in a satis-
factory manner. Give it, like a royal heart; let the price be Nothing: thou hast
then, in a certain sense, got All for it!

Carlyle's Past and Present

I

CHAPTER I

BACK IN GERMANTOWN

IT IS seldom or never that men act from motives entirely
unmixed J and the decision Taylor made at the age of
forty-five to retire from money making undoubtedly was
partly due to considerations for his health. Writing in
January, 1903, to a manufacturer who wished to employ him,
he said:

A little over a year ago I gave up active business, as I was very
much run down through incessant strain incident upon organizing
one plant after another. The nervous strain of this vi^ork can hardly
be appreciated by one who has not actually undertaken it, as it in-
volves one squabble after another, day in and day out.

If he were to continue to serve the cause of science in
management, it was strictly necessary for him to stay aloof
from the actual work of installation and development. More-
over, the shrewd Yankee in him came to recognize that few
things would so much help him in promoting his cause as the
knowledge, discreetly diffused, that in this educational work
he had no money interest whatsoever. Apart from all this,
however, he came deliberately to the conclusion that, particu-
larly in view of the way things had turned out with the
investments he had made back in the days of the depressing
free-silver heresy, he had got all the money those need who
care nothing about display.

Now, while they still were in Bethlehem, he and his wife
made another decision of moment. This was to adopt legally
three children who were distant connections of Mrs. Taylor's

167

i68 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

family. The ages of the children, a girl, Elizabeth, and
two boys, Kempton and Robert, ranged between twelve and
six. So now the subject of this biography had a new re-
sponsibility, and one which he assumed with all his wonted
seriousness.

Though he did not go to the steel works after July, 1901,
he and his wife retained their home in Bethlehem until Oc-
tober. And then, after an absence of eleven years, they re-
turned to Germantown. As at this time they yet had no
definite idea as to where they would settle, they rented a place
more or less temporarily. Called " Red Gate," it consisted
of a large brick house and about six acres, and was situated
in School House Lane, only a short distance from " Cedron,"
where Taylor had spent eleven years of his boyhood. In
this same fall he and his wife found and bought what they
considered an ideal site for their permanent home, but about
two years and a half passed before this home was ready for
them, so that they continued to live at Red Gate until the
spring of 1904.

Even before the family left Bethlehem, discipline was
established for the children by their new father. Kempton
tells us that when he and his younger brother Robert began
their life with their new parents, they were " physically soft,
and, by training, indifferent to outdoor sports." They were
bookish boys, and inclined to sit by the fire. It unmistakably
was revealed to them, particularly when the family was
settled at Red Gate, that from now on theirs was to be largely
a life in the open. Get dirty, get wet, get cold, get hungry,
get hurt, get hard — that was the spirit of it. For all this was
a part of the game. And to live was to get into the game.

And it wasn't just plain injunction. He took them out.
The two boys, with their elder sister, were required to ride to
school on their bicycles. On days when the weather was
very bad, sister was permitted to avoid this trip, but then

BACK IN GERMANTOWN 169

sister's place usually was taken by father. Says Kempton:
" It was on these trips in stormy or bitter weather that we
boys got our first insight into papa's habit of converting every
difficult or disagreeable task into a sporting event." He big-
brothered themj sat between them with an arm around eachj
went skating with themj snow-balled themj took belly-
bumpers with them 5 pulled them on their sleds, and never
failed to take advantage of a good opportunity to spill them
into the snow.

In the spring, the coachman was assigned the task of teach-
ing them baseball. And now they had a lesson in another
form of austerity. They must be content with baseball gloves
costing not more than twenty-five cents each. " Always,"
says Kempton, " we were held a trifle behind our boy friends
in the acquisition of this world's goods." However, for more
than a year at Red Gate, Kempton and Robert had friends
whose possessions were no greater than their own. These were
the sons of the coachmen and gardeners who lived in the
neighborhood. Ordered they were to play with those boys,
and if they were put to open shame by those boys' superior
skill, so much the better.

Taylor's sons soon found also that their new father was not
likely to spoil them by any sparing of the rod, especially as
they might downright fail to distinguish between fact and fic-
tion. As for daughter, she was given to understand that how-
ever much little girls might require special treatment, they,
too, should be athletic as well as strictly obedient.

But there was another side to all this. Those children were
surrounded by a watchful care that no real harm come to them.
They had strict orders to dismount from their bicycles when-
ever an automobile approached, and when they went canoeing,
a special apparatus in the nature of a straight jacket was designed
for them to insure their safety. Did any real trouble ever come
to them? Then in their stern parent they found a tower of

1 70 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

strength, and a deep well of tenderness. Were they ever ill?
Then he was their nurse. Was their rest broken? Then he
could not sleep either j in the middle of the night he would
be discovered tiptoeing in to them, or standing by the bed-
side watching and listening. For Robert, the baby of the
family, he had a special tenderness. He would be dictating
business letters to his secretary. Suddenly his face would light
up. " Now," he would say, " we will write to darling Robert."
This in later years when Robert had grown up and was away
at college.

One way during this period that Taylor took exercise, and at
the same time fulfilled a duty, was by walking over to Ross
Street, on the other side of town, to see his mother, who had
been an invalid, with mind becoming increasingly clouded,
ever since 1897, when she suffered a stroke of paralysis. It
was in March, 1904, just as her son Frederick and his family
were about to move into their permanent home, that Emily
Taylor diedj this year of 1904 being her eighty-first.

Apparently, in the two years and a half he lived at Red
Gate, Taylor got some of the recreation he needed after the
strain he had been through. You hardly could say that he
ever rested, however j and apart from his failure properly to
cultivate the ability to relax, toil and trouble had a way of
dogging him.

It has been mentioned that the firm of William Sellers &
Company was among the first to purchase shop rights under
the Taylor-White patents. And here, now, is something very
interesting. Immediately after Taylor returned to German-
town in the fall of 1901, he and William Sellers once again
joined forces. Feeling sure he would be compensated by the
knowledge thereby to be gained. Sellers agreed to open his
shop for the finishing of Taylor's metal-cutting investigation.
Much more significant is the fact that, at the age of seventy-
seven. Sellers listened to Taylor's argument that if he wished

I

BACK IN GERMANTOWN 171

to take full advantage of the high-speed steel discovery and of
those magic slide rules, the management of his shop must be
radically reorganized, and he must reconcile himself to seeing
his workmen drawing wages greatly in excess of those paid
in the establishments all around him. All along Sellers had
had his limitations in the sense that he saw farther into ma-
chinery than into men 5 but, listening to this argument of Tay-
lor's, he consented. Still to be accessible to argument and open
to conviction, still to be bent on progress, when you have long
passed the age of three score and ten — this, we must acknowl-
edge, is no mean feat.

Another interesting thing about it was that Sellers agreed
to employ for the metal-cutting experiments and the reorgan-
ization of his management no other than Carl Barth, he who
as draftsman and designer had been with Sellers' house for
fourteen years and left there six years before largely be-
cause his sense of justice was offended by Sellers' way of
treating men. Not only this, but at Taylor's prompting
Sellers now agreed to pay Barth more than twice as much
as he had been paid when, in 1895, he had left Sellers' em-
ploy.

Barth began his new engagement at the Sellers plant in
November of 1901, and was there fifteen months. Because the
tools there were much smaller than those used at Bethlehem,
he went over everything again from the bottom up. For the
first time, similar experiments were made on cast iron, these
being made possible by the fact that through Professor A. E.
Outerbridge, the Sellers' metallurgist, castings were obtained
that possessed a high degree of uniformity of hardness.

As things turned out. It proved impossible to make prac-
tical use in the Sellers shop of the information yielded by
these experiments. Despite the willingness of the head of
the business that it should be done, the Taylor System could
not there be introduced. It was a brave attempt on the part of

172 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

William Sellers. But the art of management truly is long,
and though Sellers' heart still was stoutly beating, it was
approaching the end of the journey.

For years the general manager of the company had been
Sellers' nephew, John Sellers Bancroft, while Wilfred Ban-
croft, a son of this latter gentleman, had been the shop superin-
tendent. Both of the Bancrofts were in sympathy with Tay-
lor's methods, but both retired from the Sellers company soon
after Earth's work there had got under way. And the new
superintendent proved to be a man who had neither the train-
ing nor the will to help this work along. Barth, to get things
done, was forced to appeal over his head to Sellers. Then
one day the new superintendent apparently construed some
information which Barth was forced to give him as an ex-
posure of his ignorance concerning the methods of scientific
experimentation. There followed a series of " squabbles " ;
and as things threatened to come to a standstill, Taylor was
sent for to join in the appeals to Sellers. And so there came
the day when Sellers sat back in his chair and spoke to Barth
substantially as follows:

" I am getting old and tired. I no longer am able to dic-
tate my wishes to men who are not in sympathy with me, and
as none of my officers seem to take an interest in putting this
over of their own accord, I shall have to give it up. But I
am sure Taylor and you are working along the right lines,
and that some day your ideas will be universally accepted, and
I am glad that I at least have been able to assist you somewhat
in your efforts to put metal cutting on a scientific basis."

Having known that handsome old man in his heyday, in
the day of the grandeur of his self-confidence and through
the years of his power, Barth, at this speech, could not well
have avoided being deeply affected. Three years later, when
he had reached the age of eighty-one, William Sellers died.

Now, it was soon after he took up his abode at Red Gate

I

BACK IN GERMANTOWN i73

that Taylor sentenced himself to the hard labor o£ writing
his paper, Shof Management^ this representing his second at-
tempt to set forth his principles and methods.

While in view of all the circumstances it was an admirable
effort, it had its serious defects. Brevity was gained at the
cost of a general failure to explain things in sufficient detail
to establish their real significance. If "it is the vice of our
rhetoric that we cannot state one truth without seeming to
deny some other," Taylor's rhetoric, as it reflected his intense
temperament, was singularly likely to exhibit this vice. Es-
pecially when wrested from their context, his words often had
a hardness highly misrepresentative of his real spirit. A
patent lawyer who had dealings with him has referred to him
as " a remarkable combination of high-mindedness and sagac-
ity," and doubtless he drew a little too liberally on this latter
quality in writing Shop Management. Which is to say that,
believing he must depend upon employers to introduce his
system, he aimed to make it appear as attractive to them as he
honestly could, and rather overdid it. Combine all this with
the fact that his lack of natural skill with words sometimes
led him to put things maladroitly, and it will be readily seen
how Shop Management furnished more than one quotation of
service to his opponents.

With defects of its own. Shop Management was a great im-
provement on A Piece-Rate System^ in that it made clear, or
at least clearer, that the important thing for which its author
stood was not any particular wage-payment method, but the
general principle of standardization based on scientific inves-
tigation.^ But what we here are mostly concerned with is the

^ It was said of Shop ManagemeyU at the time of its first appearance that
no man was capable of grasping- it who was more than forty. Those who
have had little or no contact with industry can have but an imperfect idea
of how impractical and faddish it all appeared to men steeped in traditional
methods. It was the young- men — young- in years or in spirit — who heard
Taylor gladly, who felt after reading his paper that scales had dropped from
their eyes.

174 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

fact that in Shof Management we for the first time find refer-
ences to a more or less complete new system of management
under such names as " modern management " and the " best
type of management." This shows that, following his Bethle-
hem experience, Taylor now had fairly in mind, not merely
certain new and improved mechanisms and methods of manage-
ment, but their linking together and coordination so as to form
an organic whole of a new and improved type.

Undoubtedly he had high hopes of what could be done at
the Sellers' plant in the way of effecting the concatenation and
coordination toward which he had been progressing at Bethle-
hem. Thus the halting of the work at Sellers' was for him
one more disappointment, and we may imagine it was not
made easier by the fact that it came while he was laboring
with the paper in which he was presenting and advocating his
principles and methods.

However, even before the work at Sellers' was halted, the
events were shaping that were to lead to his finding, there in
his home city of Philadelphia, the two plants that at last were
to provide him with a reasonably full opportunity to develop
and demonstrate his system.

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST COMPLETE DEVELOPMENTS
OF HIS SYSTEM

THESE plants were the Tabor Manufacturing Com-
pany, headed by Wilfred Lewis, and the Link-Belt
Engineering Company, headed by James Mapes
Dodge.

It will be recalled that Wilfred Lewis and Fred Taylor were
chums in boyhood, and that Lewis's employment as a drafts-
man and designer at the Sellers plant dated back to Taylor's
early Midvale days. It was in 1900 that Lewis became asso-
ciated in a leading capacity with the Tabor Company, the prin-
cipal product of which Was molding machines. A very able
mechanical engineer, he had up to this time given no thought
to management, and beyond falling in with the advice of his
well-wishers that success here was mainly a matter of keeping
down the number of clerks or " non-producers " and having
one good superintendent to lay out the work and keep it
moving through the shop, he continued to give management
scarcely a thought until the Tabor Company's growing busi-
ness began to show increasing losses. On top of this the work-
men struck for higher wages and shorter hours.

The strike [says Lewis] was compromised by the concession of
shorter hours at the same pay, the men agreeing to turn out the
same amount of work per day. There was no difficulty about their
doing this, and for a time, I believe, they kept their promise, but
a day's work was then with us a very variable and indefinite result
for a given expenditure of time or money. Soon we became well

175

176 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

aware that we had an organized resistance against any increase in
output or efficiency to meet, and the outlook for the company was
not encouraging. At the same time we knew that machines had been
built by others for less than they were costing us, and we felt con-
fident that a way could be found out of our difficulties. But we were
obliged to sell stock and borrow money for several years, until it
seemed unreasonable to expect further financial aid.

Among those to whom Lewis first went for money was
Taylor, and this first money was advanced by Taylor simply
in token of his willingness to help out an old friend. How-
ever, when he again was asked to invest in the Tabor Company,
he announced that he would do so only on the condition that
the company adopt his system of management. It was not
merely that he here saw an opportunity to demonstrate the
practical workings of his principles and methods. He believed
that unless something were done to improve the Tabor Com-
pany's management, money put into it simply would be sunk.

In referring to Taylor's stipulation that the Tabor Com-
pany adopt his system, Lewis said: " We were only too glad to
do this without having any conception of what it was." It
may seem strange that a man who had been a life-long friend
of Taylor's should have had no conception of Taylor's system.
The fact is that at this time those who were the most intimate
with him were in the habit of smiling at his management .
ideas. The common opinion of him was that while he was a
very fine fellow indeed, you had to make allowances for the
fact that in certain things he was an extremist, not to say a
bit of a crank. We must realize indeed that when he re-
turned to Philadelphia in 1901 he, despite the fact that his
mechanical genius was widely recognized and a stir had been
made by his metal-cutting achievements at Bethlehem, had
practically no sympathizers in any circle so far as his principal
ideas about management were concerned. It is true that
students of management like Henry R. Towne had been

FIRST COMPLETE DEVELOPMENTS 177

deeply impressed by his papers of the 1890's, but even Mr.
Towne, in so far as he then had had an opportunity of knowing
what Taylor's management methods were in detail, was sus-
pending judgment concerning them.

Now as to James M. Dodge and the Link-Belt plant.

A son of Mary Mapes Dodge, who for many years was
editor of St. Nicholas^ Mr. Dodge became not only, as you
might say, the first purely voluntary Taylor executive and a
stout champion of Taylor's general cause, but also one of
Taylor's warmest personal friends. His standing as an en-
gineer led to his election to the vice-presidency of Franklin
Institute, and then to the presidency of the A. S. M. E. for
1903. He was the recipient of the honorary degree of Sc. D.
from Stevens Institute, an inventor with more than a hun-
dred patents to his credit, an active participant in civic im-
provement, a noted wit, and with his broad sympathies,
generosity, democracy, and buoyancy of spirit, a prince of
good fellows. He attended the Cornell engineering school,
but owing to lack of funds did not graduate. Beginning as a
workman, he early became associated with William Dana
Ewart, the inventor of belts composed of detachable links for
the transmission of power. The bent given his mind by
his work in assisting Ewart to design these belts determined
his career, and principally out of his inventiveness grew up
the Link-Belt Company, with a plant in Nicetown, Philadel-
phia (hard by the Midvale works), and branches in Chicago,
Indianapolis, and Buffalo.

Never was a man who believed less in red tape and believed
more in self-expression than the very impulsive James M.
Dodge. And like many another he for a long time felt that
such management methods as Taylor advocated were destruc-
tive of all individual initiative. His conversion to the Taylor
System was brought about through the interest he took in
high-speed steel when Taylor, as an employee of the Beth-

178 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

lehem Company, was selling his shop rights. Says Charles
Piez, who became the operative head of the Nicetown plant:

It was but natural that Mr. Dodge, with his strong leaning toward
the new and untried, should evince intense interest in so epochal an
event as the discovery of Taylor-White tool steel. . . . Under the
infection of Mr. Dodge's enthusiasm our entire organization suffered
for a time from a mild form of speed mania. . . . Our line-shaft
speeds were doubled, our power plant had to be materially enlarged,
and as a final step to secure the desired flexibility in both power and
speed, the line-shafts were abandoned and individual motor drives
introduced.

For a year or more the orderly procedure of our machine shop was
seriously disarranged by the attempt to drive the machine tools to
the limit of the tool-steel capacity. The output was increased, but
breakdowns were so frequent that the increases in expenses more than
outweighed the advantage of added output. It was then that Mr.
Dodge realized that the burden of changing equipment and methods
to meet the possibilities of the new tool steel were too severe to im-
pose on an organization already fully absorbed in looking after
the needs of the company's business. He consulted Mr. Taylor about
our predicament, and Mr. Taylor suggested that we employ Carl
Barth, one of his aids, to assume charge of the changes brought about
by the use of the Taylor-White tool steel.

Mr. Barth ... at once, inaugurated an exhaustive series of tests.
While these were being carried on, saner cutting speeds were ad-
vocated, the toolroom was thoroughly reorganized and machine tools
rearranged and rebuilt. Under Mr. Earth's intelligent direction both
equipment and men were well prepared before the first actual steps
of producing work at high speed were undertaken. And his work
was thoroughly done, for once begun, the work of changing over
to the new feeds and speeds proceeded rapidly.

This should show that when Taylor methods really are
employed, they are not the cause of speed mania, but its cure.
In referring further to Earth's work of scientifically speeding
the machines and reorganizing the tool room, Piez said:

JAMES MAPES DODGE

WILFRED LEWIS

FIRST COMPLETE DEVELOPMENTS 179

" While this work was going on, Mr. Dodge became enamored
of the Taylor System, which had but shortly before been
outlined in Mr. Taylor's famous paper presented before the
American Society of Mechanical' Engineers."

The paper here referred to was, of course, Shof Manage-
ment. It was in June of 1903, at the Saratoga meeting of the
A. S. M. E., that Taylor read his paper. Some time before
its formal presentation, he placed advance sheets at Dodge's
disposal, and he did this also in the case of Wilfred Lewis.
His paper, in fact, played a leading part in the " conversion "
of both of these gentlemen.

His relationship to the Tabor and Link-Belt plants while
his system was being installed in those places has been de-
scribed as that of an " unpaid consultant and supervisor." In
this way also can be described his relationship to other plants
that later took up his system. His at all times was the general
direction, and he was certain to be sent for to give direct
attention to details whenever there was a hitch.

While, as in the foregoing paragraph, the word installed
may be here occasionally used in connection with the Taylor
System for the sake of its convenience, it must not be taken as
implying the introduction at each plant of the same methods
and mechanisms or anything resembling what Taylor scorn-
fully called " unloading a ton or two of blanks on a set of
men and saying, 'Here's your system j go to it. '" As in all
cases where Taylor worked either directly or through his
lieutenants, the Tabor and Link-Belt " installations " each
represented a specific development in the sense that in each
case the system had to be adapted, not only to the particular
manufacturing problem, but also to the capacities of the in-
dividuals available at the particular time and place, and in
the sense also that these individuals had to be so selected and
trained as to form an organization competent to practice the
system.

i8o FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

At the end of January, 1903, when Barth got through at
Sellers', he immediately was sent to the Tabor shop, where he
spent three and a half months making slide rules for the
machines and doing other work connected therewith,^ and
then (in May) took up his work at the Link-Belt plant. At
this latter plant he continued to be Taylor's " man on the job "
in connection with the whole development. So far as his work
pertained to the respeeding of the machinery and putting in
the slide rules, he needed no guidance from Taylor. If only
because he had been free to specialize in this work, whereas
his chief had riot, he here became the expert. At the begin-
ning of his Link-Belt engagement, however, he had not yet
turned his mind to such problems as the introduction of
functional foremanship and of time study, and while he was
acquiring experience in this connection, Taylor had to give
to this phase of the work much personal attention.

After Barth left the Tabor shop in May, 1903, Taylor
struggled unassisted there until December, 1904, when Barth
began the practice of occasionally leaving his Link-Belt work
to give a day or two to helping out with the Tabor develop-
ment. Now, early in the fall of 1904, the Link-Belt Com-
pany employed a young man of twenty-six named Horace K.
Hathaway and assigned him to helping Barth. So readily
did this young man take to scientific methods that when in
December, 1904, Barth resumed work at the Tabor plant, the
Link-Belt Company was asked to lend Hathaway to the
Tabor Company. That the lending became permanent will
appear when it is stated that eventually the burden of direct-
ing the whole Tabor development fell upon Hathaway, save
only for the assistance he received from Taylor and from
Barth's occasional visits. Here, as a matter of fact, was the

■^ It must not be thought that Barth had to make a complete slide rule for
each machine. True, each machine in certain particulars presented a different
problem that had to be taken care of on the rule, but this Barth did with a
system of interchangeable parts.

FIRST COMPLETE DEVELOPMENTS i8i

man who was destined to become, along with Barth, Gantt,
and Cooke, one of the quartet of engineers upon whom Tay-
lor in his last years chiefly relied.

Writing in 1907 to F. R. Hutton, then president of the
A. S. M. E., Taylor said:

For about three years past I have been very intimately thrown
with Mr. Hathaway. Time after time, when the decision rested with
him, I have seen him choose the straightforward, honest, and direct
way of dealing with men and the square way of treating them.
It is needless for me to add that I look upon Mr. Hathaway as one
of the most able and brilliant young men that I know of. His all-
around judgment and tact and experience with men are far beyond his
years.

He appears to have been born with an abundance of that
good horse sense which commonly manifests itself in dry
humor. You ask him a question j there is a moment of quiet
reflection, and then you get, not an answer, but the answer.
In meeting Mr. Taylor, you met an intense, high-strung man,
and this in each case you did also in meeting Mr. Barth, Mr.
Gantt, and Mr. Cooke. None quite so intense as Mr. Taylor,
perhaps, but all in some degree. Thus when you came to
Mr. Hathaway, so very self-contained, you were struck by
the difference.

Now, when Taylor was testifying in 19 12 he was asked:
" How many concerns to your knowledge use your system in
its entirety? " His reply was: " In its entirety? — none, not
one." Nowhere did he see his ideal fully embodied in fact.
At the same time it is permissible to call the Tabor and Link-
Belt developments complete ones in the sense that each offered
a manufacturing problem of a complexity requiring a high de-
velopment of system and of organization, and that in each case,
but more particularly at the Tabor plant, Taylor was able to
get done through Barth and Hathaway things he had never

1 82 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

been able to get done before, and the development was to him
so satisfactory that he used it practially as a model when he
wished to demonstrate the working of his principles.

Let it not be thought that because he did not participate in
the every-day work of these and the other later develop-
ments, he did not bear his full share of the trouble that
inevitably arose in connection with them. Just as his was the
general direction, so his was the general responsibility.
Trouble continued to arise despite the fact that the chief
executives with whom he now had to deal were engineers and
generally of the type of the gentleman and scholar. If
Scientific Management requires a mental revolution on the
part of everyone connected with the company, it should go
without saying that no chief executive, however forceful, can
change the mental attitude of his subordinates over night.

It took over two years [said James M. Dodge] for our organi-
zation to surrender fully, and so change our mental attitude that
we became really receptive. I mean by this that I found no difficulty
at all in having the heads of various departments agree that the in-
troduction of the Taylor System would be most desirable, but in
each case it was for everybody else in the establishment but entirely
unnecessary for him.

Very human this attitude, that it is for others to give up
their individual ways and submit themselves to law, while we
remain a law unto ourselves. Many of the minor officials
who later became warm advocates of Taylor's methods were
for months his determined opponents. For months he heard
scarcely anything but complaints. Frequently the chief men
all but lost faith. And there were times when Taylor himself,
feeling himself deserted or on the point of being deserted by
everybody, was all but crushed. He continued to have his
valleys, deep and dark.

With increasing experience in making installations, he and

FIRST COMPLETE DEVELOPMENTS 183

his group of engineers came thoroughly to realize and therefore
largely to discount the fact that they and the company must
pass through what became technically known as the " hell
period." Again and again they would set their system going,
only to have it fall down. Says one of these engineers with
more force than elegance: " After every fall down, you pick
the system up by the scrufF of its neck, give it a kick, and
it goes on again. And so it continues until one fine day,
lo and behold! it proceeds as if by a miracle to work and keep
working of its own accord." The explanation of the " mir-
acle " of course is that all those upon whom the system de-
pends for its smooth working come at last properly to play
their respective parts. One man who is incompetent or
unwilling will, as his position may be important, make a lame
duck out of the whole system or put it out of business entirely.

In one of the pioneer Scientific Management establishments
a cheap man always had been employed for a certain position.
Under the Taylor System the duties pertaining to this posi-
tion became such that only a high-priced man could discharge
them. But all the company's minor officials could see was
that that position always had paid only so much. The
consequence was that as fast as a man was placed in the position
he would quit. And with all this changing, the system refused
to work. And then there were vociferous complaints about its
refusal to work. At length Taylor appealed directly to the
company's chief executive. " Would you," he asked, " expect
an engine to work with a broken connecting rod? " The chief
saw the point, and issued an order to pay whatsoever was neces-
sary to get the right man for that position and hold him. His
subordinates were thunderstruck. It took time and effort to
convince them that he meant what he said. Great, great is the
power of tradition!

If Taylor repeatedly had to take heroic action to keep these
first installations going, here again the trouble was practically

1 84 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

all with the management. It came to be lightheartedly written
in the seclusion of editorial rooms that the great mistake Scien-
tific Management men made was in imposing their system
from above. The fact is, of course, that Taylor had no choice
but to rely on those at the top to take the initiative, and if
Scientific Management was imposed on anyone, it was on
none more than those at the top. The idea that efficiency can
begin with those lower down is hardly feasible. Undirected
or misdirected labor always has been the big evil. The
officers must be trained first. To none did Taylor lay down
the law so imperiously as to chief executives. But really
there was here no imposing, just as there could be no imposing
of Scientific Management by the chief executive on the minor
officials, or by the management collectively on the working peo-
ple. Often an element of external pressure, to be sure. What
is radically new usually must be more or less forced on people,
if only to induce them to give it an opportunity to speak for
itself. But in the end Scientific Management had so to speak
for itself as to bring about that mental revolution, that con-
version.

Were it possible to print all of the conversions to Taylor's
methods that gradually came about, it might read much like
the annals of Moody and Sankey. Often the means was
Barth's slide rules, and here is an example: John Rheinfeldt
was one of the Link-Belt mechanics to rise to a position in the
planning department. One day some written instructions of
his, based on figuring with a slide rule, were questioned by
the man who was to do the work, a piece of machining too
complicated to explain here. Sure that he knew a better way,
the operator appealed to his speed boss, who sustained him.
Then Rheinfeldt appealed to the gang boss, who sided with
him against the speed boss and the operator. That brought
the general foreman into the dispute, and finally an appeal
was taken to the superintendent of the works. " Now," said

FIRST COMPLETE DEVELOPMENTS 185

the superintendent, " we are going to try this out. Do you,"
he asked Rheinfeldt, " want to try your way first? " " No,
sir," was the answer j " let the man who brought up the pro-
test try his way first." After the operator had tried his own
way, he agreed to try Rheinfeldt's. The result, said Rhein-
feldt, "proved conclusively to the operator and the speed
boss and gang boss and the general foreman and superinten-
dent and to all that the slide rule knew what it was speaking
about."

How Taylor, with his positiveness, intensity, and forceful
ways in general, was regarded by some people may be gathered
from the fact that the head of a large Philadelphia manu-
facturing establishment remarked to the writer: " I would
no more think of turning a man like Taylor loose in my
place than I would a wild bull." Well, of all the establish-
ments with which he had anything to do, that of the Tabor
Company undoubtedly was the one where, to an extent most
nearly complete, he was able to treasure up his bright designs
and work his sovereign will. Testifying in 1912 before that
Special House Committee, Dr. Hollis Godfrey, who later
became president of Philadelphia's Drexel Institute, said:

The first plant under scientific management with which I was
connected was the Tabor Co. I had full opportunity there to see
all books and figures, and nothing was more impressive to me than
the fact that the Tabor Co., with approximately the same number
of men and machines as were used under the old system, was turning
out three times the production; that it was giving 73 per cent higher
wages to workmen; that it had made a 25 per cent reduction in the
selling price of its machines; thereby producing so much saving to
the consumer. Moreover, that this company, which had lost money be-
fore the introduction of scientific management, was now and had
been making a good profit; that from the condition of a strike and
inharmonious relations before the introduction of scientific manage-
ment there had come about the friendliest of feeling between man-
agement, workmen, and outsiders.

CHAPTER III
BOXLY

THE property purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Taylor
for their permanent home in the fall of 1901 soon
after they were settled at Red Gate was one of
about eleven acres situated in Chestnut Hill, the section be-
yond Germantown at the extreme northwest limit of the city
of Philadelphia. It overlooked the tree tops of that most
charming section of Philadelphia's park system known as the
Wissahickon Valley, and had formed part of a place long
known as the Sheridan farm.

Back in 1683 the land was granted by William Penn to
Francis Daniel Pastorius, the leader here of the Mennonites,
or "German Qoiakers." In 1803 the ownership passed to
Count John du Barry, a refugee from the French Revolution,
and it was he who gave the place a distinction it never has lost.
Being interested in silk culture as well as agriculture, du
Barry, in addition to apple trees brought from France, planted
the trees forming what became known as Mulberry Walk.
By the highway he built himself a cottage, and behind it laid
out gardens in the style of Versailles. There were flowers in
elaborate abundance, and fine shrubbery, and arbors, and
statuary, and a high protecting stone wall at the head of the
garden to the north. Also at the head of the garden he built
a picturesque greenhouse and covered it with French roses.
And among the other things he did was to border his garden
plots with boxj little recking, of course, that this would lead
to a remarkable exercise of ingenuity on the part of an engineer
destined to succeed him a century later in the ownership.

186

BOXLY 187

For fifteen years du Barry continued in possession, and
after him came three other owners before the place, in 1833,
passed to one Sheridan. This Mr. Sheridan tore down the
cottage built by du Barry, put up a larger house, and added
some border box. Otherwise, it would appear, he followed
the example of the owners who had intervened between him
and du Barry, and let the place remain practically as it was.
With age, of course, it mellowed, and presently it became
famous as having the most picturesque old-fashioned garden
anywhere in the vicinity of Philadelphia. Many were the
artists who came to paint its masses of roses, its box-bordered
walks, and its quaint buildings, including the springhouse
which, built before du Barry's time, is said to be the oldest
building in Chestnut Hill.

The part of the Sheridan farm acquired by the Taylors
contained the quaint old garden and buildings as well as the
" mansion " built by Sheridan. So here was the beginning of
Boxly, destined now to become internationally famous as the
seat of the campaign Taylor conducted throughout his latter
years on behalf of the principle of science in management.
And in those very activities of his having to do with the
establishment of Boxly we shall see some of the most remark-
able examples of the workings of his scientific mind.

It was decided that the Sheridan mansion, situated by the
roadside, would well serve as a gardener's lodge, with room
in the rear, where the stables were, for the coachman. The
new house to be put up for the owners would have to be
placed where it would command a view of the Wissahickon
Valley. The Taylors, in fact, long since had decided that
something in the way of a view was one of the indispensable
features of their permanent home. But the garden! So long
had it been neglected that the vegetation, especially the box,
was running riot. A really heroic work of general restoration
and reconstruction here was called for. This not solely for

1 88 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

the owners' sakej it was felt that in the preservation of such
an historic place the public was vitally interested, and in
connection with every phase of this work expert advice was
sought.

The architect employed for the house was Mantle Fielding,
who had been one of the younger set of Germantown boys
to participate with Fred Taylor in sports. As landscape ar-
chitects were employed the firm of Olmstead Brothers, with
Percival Gallagher mainly serving as that firm's representative.
Presently brought in for more or less steady service was
Harold Van du Zee, a civil engineer of Germantown, and
many were the nurserymen consulted. And there also — it
would not do to overlook him — was the expert gardener,
Robert Bender.

It was while Taylor was living in Bethlehem that he made
Bender's acquaintance. Then less than thirty, Bender had
been in the employ of R. H. Sayre, Jr., of Bethlehem, for
fourteen years. He had wished to build a greenhouse j his
employer thought he could not aflFord itj so, collecting second-
hand materials. Bender went ahead and built it himself. Hear-
ing of this incident, Taylor said: " Now there is a man." With
Sayre's permission he spoke to Bender, telling him where to
come should he ever need a job. And when in February,
1902, Bender did go to Taylor, it was not merely to remain
with him during the rest of Taylor's life, but to become one
of Taylor's most highly valued friends.

It is safe to say that none of the professional gentlemen
employed in the establishment of Boxly ever before had had
a client like Frederick Taylor. Not that he had any notions
that he knew when he didn't. With questions of taste, of
beauty, he made no attempt to deal. There the person whom
everyone had to consult was Mrs. Taylor. He freely con-
ceded to everyone what was theirs, as long as he got the cer-
tain things which he felt were his, and these might as well

BOXLY 189

have been conceded to him first as last. But the really lively
doings came when he was told that something Mrs. Taylor or
he wanted was impossible, that the difficulties were too great.
Invariably it was the signal for the uprising of a man heart-
ened and refreshed and radiating energy and enthusiasm.

It all began when into Fielding^s office Taylor walked one
day, and, sitting down, extracted from his pocket a large en-
velope from which he proceeded to fish pieces of paper of
various sizes and colors. There were pieces of grey wall-
paper and brown wall-paper, pieces of blue envelope paper,
and so on. The architect first had a wild idea that he was
being introduced to a jigsaw puzzle. But no, each piece of
paper represented a room, and each had been made to scale.
Here was the result of the planning Mr. and Mrs. Taylor
had been doing for years. The general plan, of course, was
wandering. " I want you to help me," said Taylor, " put it
together in workable form."

The first " impossibility " encountered was that of placing
the house so that it would command a view of the Wissahickon
Valley and at the same time front, as was highly desirable,
on what had been the head of the old garden. True, this
fronting would bring the rear of the house on a line with
the valley, but back of this site stood a rather precipitous hill
completely shutting off the view. Not only would the hill
have to be removed, but a slope substituted. All right, said
Taylor J and it was so ordered.

For the living room and the dining room, which opened at
the rear, Taylor wanted great windows in which the Wissa-
hickon view would be framed as if a picture. In the archi-
tect's opinion this was entirely inconsistent with the type
of architecture decided upon, that of the English of Christo-
pher Wren, or the Southern Colonial, as it became known upon
its importation here. A house of this kind called for windows
with small panes. Taylor, however, failed to see why he

190 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

couldn't have his Southern Colonial architecture and his great
windows, tooj and this was one of the things that simply had
to be conceded to him. As designed by him, each of the win-
dows was seven feet high by nine feet wldcj the frame en-
closing the huge sheet of glass extended up from the floor,
and was hung and swung on ball-bearing pivots placed at the
sides. For each window was a shutter operated by hydraulic
power J you raised a trap in the floor, turned a valve, and
the shutter would rise. In the living room, as it was finally
arranged, two of these windows were placed close together at
an obtuse angle. But whereas one of the windows commanded
the Wissahlckon view, the other looked into the conservatory.

He contributed other unique features. For the conserva-
tory, which was circular in shape, he designed a moving plat-
form operated on a circular track, so that the man arranging
and caring for the flowers could stand above them and pull
himself around. For each of the fireplaces In the main hall,
the living room, and the dining room, he designed a woodbox,
the bottom of which was the floor of an elevator ascending
from the cellar, and thus overcame the need of carrying wood
through the house. Each fireplace, besides having a chute for
ashes, had a screen which dropped down from the chimney.
Above the eaves of the house was placed a cooling chamber
with pipes leading to the furnaces and down through other
parts of the house to give ventilation through registers.

It was not until the spring of 1903 that the plans, with
their many changes, were ready for the builder. In the mean-
time Taylor had coped with the greatest of his " impossi-
bilities," that of fully utilizing du Barry's box border, and it
was his success in this particular that warranted them in giving
the place the name they did.

In a paper he prepared in 1908 for his wife's garden club he
described the peculiar problem this box had presented and the
unique and heroic methods he employed to overcome it:

ROBERT BENDER

Standing beside the transplanted box hedge. Incidentally this shows the

height of the century-old box

BOXLY 191

The soil in which the box was planted was evidently exactly suited
to its rapid development, it being an open, sandy loam, well drained.
And instead of making the paths of broken stone, ashes, or any of
the other materials generally used, the original garden soil formed
through the whole hundred years the main body of the path. Thus
the box roots were given double the opportunity for growth, so that
for many years the beds were so overshadowed by it that nothing
could be successfully grown in them, and the original paths were
completely obliterated as the two tiny borders of box on either side
spread out until they formed to all appearances one huge continuous
hedge. In many cases it was difficult to force one's way through the
interwoven branches of the two rows, as they clasped hands across
the old paths. So that, for thirty years or more, in place of a garden
it had been a wild tangle of box, overgrown with vines and inter-
spersed with small trees, wild rose bushes, and weeds. Here and
there some of the descendants of the original flowers and a few
of the long-lived vines planted a century ago still survived. . . .

When we purchased the garden, we were confronted with a
problem even more difficult than we had anticipated. During the
preceding thirty years many attempts had been made to transplant
specimens of the large box bushes, and they had invariably resulted
in failure, so that when we suggested moving the box we were told,
not only by the former owner of the place, but by all the gardeners
and landscape architects whom we consulted, that it was an impossi-
bility.

Several plans were made by the landscape architects which involved
cutting down the greater part of the hedge, leaving only here and
there a few sections of the original rows. And even those portions
which they proposed leaving seemed meaningless and entirely out
of place in a modern garden. To destroy this rare and beautiful
growth of a hundred years seemed nothing short of vandalism.

It was evident that if the box could be lifted in such a way that all
of the roots would remain undisturbed in their original soil, the
whole hedge could be transplanted with a certainty of its all living.
No one, however, was able to tell us how far down or how far on
either side the roots of the box extended. In fact, those nursery-
men who were best informed told us plainly that they had no ex-

192 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

perience with box of this size. As this knowledge presented the key
to the whole problem, we decided to carefully investigate the posi-
tion of the roots.

A bush having one of the largest stems in the garden, about two
and a half to three inches in diameter, was selected for examination.
A hole was dug in the ground about six feet away from the outer
edge of the bush, and when about eight feet deep in the ground a
tunnel was made directly under the centre of the bush. This was
boarded over so as to keep the dirt overhead from falling in. The
soil was then carefully removed by hand, a little at a time, until
the first roots at the side of the bush were exposed to sight. Directly
under the middle of the stem the soil was also pulled away, gradually
approaching the surface of the ground, until finally the roots of the
bush were also located directly below the stem.

This examination and location of the roots showed clearly why
all the former efforts to transplant the bushes failed. A very curious
and instructive root growth had occurred during the past hundred
years. It is well known that, for the first twenty to thirty years,
the box roots go almost straight down beneath the plant in a way
resembling the tap roots of a tree. They will be found to extend, in
most cases, all the way down through the layer of top soil until they
reach the barren ground which contains no nourishment. Undoubt-
edly the roots of the hedge in this garden had originally gone down in
this way directly beneath the stem. During the hundred years of
growth, however, they had completely exhausted the soil beneath
the bushes from all of those elements which are needed to nourish
box, and when they were incapable of drawing any more nutriment
from the exhausted soil, they gradually died, and were replaced by a
few large roots which ran within about four to five inches of the
surface of the ground, right out toward the outer edge of the box,
where new soil was to be found. After running to the outer edge,
these large roots spread out into a pear-shaped mass of interlaced,
spongy roots, which are characteristic of box. Thus directly beneath
the bush, where one would naturally look for the roots, not a sign
of a root was to be found; and all of those who had previously tried
to transplant the box had cut off the two spongy masses of live roots
at the edge of the bushes.

BOXLY 193

The examination of the location of the roots showed the necessity
for lifting soil about eight feet wide with each bush, and the possi-
bility of successfully transplanting the hedge became evident, pro-
viding this task could be accomplished. After considerable study, we
decided to try to lift the box in quite long rows.

A machine was first made similar to the machines used in coal
mines for undercutting or seaming the coal. This consisted of
an endless chain, with strong steel tools, or knives, attached to it,
which cut away, not only the soil, but also any ordinary rocks or
stones which lay in its path. It worked successfully, but so slowly
that the transplanting promised to be a matter of years.

After several trials, we finally hit upon a plan of forcing steel
plates, or knives, through the ground beneath the box. These knives
consisted of plates nine feet long and five feet wide, having their
front edges sharpened and being braced on the under side with steel
angles, also sharpened. To do this, a trench about fifteen feet wide
was dug on one side of the hedgerow which was to be transplanted,
while a narrow trench about eighteen inches wide was dug on the
other side. The roots were then planked in on each side and put under
heavy pressure with bolts, so as to keep the soil from jarring loose.
The knives were placed in the wide pit, and started into the subsoil
just below the rich soil which contained the mass of roots. A thirty-
ton screw jack was then used to force the plate through the soil,
and so great was this pressure that the steel knife would cut through
the ordinary sandstone of this neighborhood about as easily, apparently,
as if it were cheese. The only rocks which hindered the progress of
these plates were occasional large quartz boulders, and when these
were met it was necessary to tunnel in under the knife and drop
the boulder down out of the way of its front edge.

One hedgerow transplanted in a single piece was about thirty
feet long, nine feet wide, and six feet high. With the earth
taken with it so as to leave all the roots undisturbed, it weighed
about thirty tons. After the steel plates had been forced be-
neath the row, they formed the flooring upon which the row
rested, wooden skids or runners having been bolted to the

194 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

under side of the plates so as to give a smooth surface for the
moving. To the angle iron braces projecting from the ends
of the steel plates, iron trusses were bolted, one on each side of
the hedgerow. Hydraulic jacks resting on a large wooden
turntable then lifted the whole hedge, with its plates under-
neath, supporting boards on the sides, and trusses for stiff eners.
A horse pivoted the mass around on the turntable so as to
head it in the direction of its new location, to which it was
rolled along upon wooden runways or tracks. In the case
of this particular hedgerow the distance traveled was about
a hundred and fifty feet.
Continuing, Taylor said:

In each case a bed was prepared to receive the box, consisting of
six to eight inches of sand for drainage, with eight inches of rich
compost, made of sand and manure, on top of it. The box row was
lowered on to this bed, and the iron plates or knives carefully pulled
out from beneath it, one at a time, so as to avoid disturbing the
roots in the least. About one foot of rich soil was in all cases added
on each side of the row, close up to the roots. . . .

About 1,200 feet in length of hedge all told were moved. Prac-
tically all of the hedge now in sight in and surrounding the flower
garden was transplanted. The work began about the middle of March,
as soon as the frost was out of the ground, and was finished about the
middle of November; some twenty to thirty men and one to seven
or eight horses being employed throughout this time. . . .

The greatest difficulty in connection with this work, will never be
fully appreciated. It consisted in the most minute and painstaking
study of the whole moving problem, which was made by Mr. Harold
Van du Zee. In preparing for and directing this work, Mr. Van du
Zee made careful measurements of every small section of the box,
as it originally stood in the garden, noting the exact contour, height,
and general appearance of each bush, etc. It should be understood
that in its hundred years of growth the hedge had become ex-
tremely irregular in contour; some bushes being high and narrow,
while others were low and wide, and yet others were more or less

^-.^■'^<:.^ -^L. .-^li

ABOVE — THE OLD GARDEN BEFORE MOVING THE BOX

BELOW — A SECTION OF THE BOX CRATED

FOR MOVING

I

ABOVE — A CRATED SECTION OF THE BOX EN TRANSIT
BELOW — NEAR VIEW OF A SECTION OF THE BOX AFTER MOVING

BOXLY 195

stunted in their growth, being both low and narrow; and these
bushes of varying sizes and shapes were intermingled irregularly
throughout the garden. Drawings were made of all of the bushes,
and from this data Mr. Van du Zee was able to match up the bushes
from the various parts of the garden, so as to make what now have
the appearance of continuous rows of box, fairly uniform in size
and in general shape. ... It was impossible, particularly at the
start, to move bushes across from one part of the garden to another,
owing to the mass of intervening box. Thus Mr. Van du Zee's
problem consisted of a huge game of chess, in which the moves of
the box and of the workmen could be planned only perhaps two weeks
ahead.

• The parts of Taylor's paper here omitted show that he
made a study of the characteristics of box in every particular.
One of the things he learned was that if it is important during
the first year or two to shield transplanted box from the sum-
mer sun, it was even more important to protect it from the
thawing action of the winter sun. " Only about six or eight
bushes of all those transplanted in our garden died," he said,
" and these were all shielded from the northern winds and
exposed to the southern sun."

Writing in 19 10 to a friend who was thinking of having
some box transplanted, he said:

I have never regretted in the least the expense and trouble which we
went to in moving our box here. It cost us about $9.00 per running
foot to do the moving, and we were greatly laughed at for going to
this expense at the time. From a money point of view, however, the
expenditure has been far more than justified, since we find that the
old garden on the place adds more to the price which we could get
for it, if we sold it, than the cost of moving. I believe it cost us
some $17,000 in all to get the garden in its present shape, and it has
added more than $100,000 to the selling value of the place. We of
course have no idea of selling, but purchasers who are very anxious
to buy have insisted on making an offer. I only mention this to indi-

196 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

cate that, viewed merely from the money standpoint, the moving of
your box might be justified.

Apart from the value it added to the property, he always
found consolation in the thought that the money spent on the
garden was designed to bring as much satisfaction to others
as to himself. To a gentleman who twitted him on the cost
of his garden, he retorted : " You have spent more than ten
thousand dollars on your library j but how many people will
enjoy your library as compared with the number who will
enjoy my garden! "^

The box was moved in 1902, and it was in the following
summer that the house was started. The principal material
used for the house was rough local stone finished in white
stucco. Taylor wanted time studies made of this masonry
work, and actually talked the astonished contractor into itj
but the men balked, and while Taylor was for applying his
old method of picking out one man and by a combination of
persuasion and pressure get him to become an object lesson
to the others, the contractor, fearing that the work would be
delayed so that he could not finish within the time limit,
begged off.

With the completion of the house in the spring of 1904,
the family moved in from Red Gate. Much work, however,
remained to be done on the place. As a matter of fact, Taylor
made the development of his garden and grounds furnish
occupation for his powers of investigation and invention
throughout the eleven years of life remaining to himj the
great charm of it for him being that there he could work
unrestrained by a feeling of responsibility to an employer.

It was in the spring and summer of 1904 that most of the

^ It should be interesting to add that now, many years after Taylor's
death, the box he transplanted is, under Robert Bender's direction, yielding
a steady revenue from the sale of slips, and that the fixing of prices for
various sized lots is done with the aid of a slide rule made by Carl Barth.

A VISTA IN THE GARDEN

BOXLY 197

work was done in changing the hill back of the house into a
slope. After getting contractors to bid on this excavating, Tay-
lor decided to act as his own contractor, and subject the men
with their horses and scoops to a system of task and bonus.
" We found out," he said in the lectures he came to give at
Boxly, " just what a horse will endure, what percentage of
the day he must haul with such a load, how much he can pull,
how much he should rest." His standard was set by the best
heavy-draft horses of the locality, and he used his keen eyes to
chase all other kinds off the job. The men received a bonus
of thirty cents a day for doing exactly as they were told.
There were " four bosses to handle between twenty and thirty
men." And, said Taylor, " it cost us not over fifteen cents a
yard for the long haul up the hill. We did not get a bid of
less than fifty-five cents for that."

That this excavating work was not done in vain, can be
testified to by all who have visited Boxly. Here now, looking
as if it had been there always, is a grassy slope that gradually
descends until at the wandering brook below it merges into
the Wissahickon forest. To one side, near the foot, a fine
weeping willow, and on the other side an irregular border
of trees. Out over the Wissahickon treetops a sweeping view
of the distant woods and cultivated fields of the Roxborough
hills, behind which descends the sun. And so here is the pas-
toral scene framed by the great windows in the dining room
and living room, and unfolded from the roomy rear porch.
How perturbed the spirit to which it could not bring rest!

Evidently it could bring little or no rest to Taylor. " It
seems," Van du Zee writes, " as if I never found Mr. Taylor
in any period of relaxation j even when we were sitting still
there was always something to study, consider, or plan."

In the spring the family moved to Boxly, Taylor and Van
du Zee started another big project. At Cedron, where Tay-
lor's sister, Mrs. Clarence M. Clark, then lived, was a

198 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

wistaria vine about fifty years old, and as improvements
planned by the Clarks made it necessary either to move or
destroy it, the Taylors were told they could have it. For the
usual moving methods Taylor had no usej this if only be-
cause that old vine was then in bloom and he was determined
that it should go right on blooming, which means that he was
going to get without injuring them even the fibrous roots
and the hair lines, and get them with all their original soil.
Thus the method he resorted to was precisely that he had
used in moving the box. Again the same careful work in
locating the roots j again supporting planks were driven down
on each side, sharpened plates forced underneath with screw
jacks, and the whole mass, stiffened by trusses, raised with
hydraulic jacks. Only this time, on account of the distance
it had to be transported — from Cedron to Boxly was about
six miles — the mass had, by means of horse and block and
fall, to be hoisted on to a truck. If the vine had been moved
in the ordinary way, the load would not have been more than
five tons. As it was, the load was about fifteen. Twenty-two
horses (all first class, of course) did the hauling, and save for
the fact that the truck when nearing Boxly broke through a
wooden culvert so concealed beneath the macadam that it had
been overlooked, the whole moving was accomplished just as
planned. As Bender says, the Taylor method permits you to
move even large trees without their ever knowing it. Eventu-
ally Taylor took out a patent for his tree-moving appliance,
but this, as was the case with all his later patents, was merely
for the record.

" My first impression of Mr. Taylor," Van du Zee writes,
" was that he was a terror. Gradually this was succeeded by
the consciousness that a more just, democratic, and kindly
man never lived. One of the great advantages of dealing
with him was that he told you unmistakably when in his
opinion you were doing right and when you were doing

MOVING THE FIFTY-YEAR-OLD WISTARIA WHILE
IN BLOOM

MOVING A THIRTV-FOOT WHITE PIXE

By the Taylor method, \vhich leaves the minutest root fibres

undisturbed

BOXLY 199

wrong, so that you always knew just where you stood with
him."

Presently this civil engineer, then still a young man, be-
came aware that many new clients were coming to him. At
first he attributed this to nothing special, but at length came
to realize that the new turn in his fortunes all had been in-
spired by Taylor. Other of the men who assisted Taylor in
the development of Boxly also found him not merely appre-
ciative but a royal friend. No one, apparently, could take
any real interest in serving him without his finding a way to
make a return over and above what the contract called for.

Frederick Taylor, the mechanical and management engi-
neer j Harold Van du Zee, the civil engineer j and Robert
Bender, the expert gardener — these constituted the trio
which, taking orders from Mrs. Taylor in all matters of
taste, and continuing in association for years, contributed
the science that, apart from the plans furnished by the
landscape architects, was needed to make the Boxly grounds
and gardens what they are to-day. Always under the leader-
ship of Taylor they were starting something. Always there
was something doing. When they were bent on attaining
any object, meal times were forgotten and rain ignored.

Evidently Taylor counted both Van du Zee and Bender as
his familiar friends. In his case, familiarity never bred con-
tempt. Though he carried no airs and " put on no lugs," he
was surrounded 'by a protecting natural dignity. Whether
they were working men or professional men, those who had
known him in his youth found it an entirely natural thing
to go on calling him Fred. Others apparently found that the
better they knew him, the more inclined they were to call him
Mister Taylor. In fact, as we hear this title still applied to
him by those who were his intimate friends and professional
associates, it seems to stand for a unique combination of affec-
tion and respect and to be an inseparable part of his name.

200 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

He was entirely human in his love of appreciation. In an
atmosphere of aflFection and sympathy, he too would expand.
Thus when he and Van du Zee would go on hikes for the good
of their health, he would enthrall that younger man with tales
of his professional adventures, of his stormy days at Bethle-
hem, of the discovery of high-speed steel. The friendship
between him and Bender seems to have been one of special
nobility. Here, surely, was a practically perfect example of
the spirit of mutual service. Was there illness in Bender's
lodge while Bender was away? Then at this lodge Taylor
would sit up through the night. He was as jealous of his
gardener's self-respect as of his own. Sometimes when he
was returning from a trip. Bender would meet him at the
station and offer to take his bag. " No," said hej " why
should you carry it any more than I ? " ^ Now that time is
making Bender more accustomed to the loss of his friend,
he once more can trust himself to speak of him. " All that
is in me which is worth while," he says, " I owe to Mr.
Taylor."

Eventually Mrs. Taylor began to take special interest in
roses, and that was the signal for her husband and Bender to
gather in all available information about the growing of roses,
organize this information, and start experimenting. "We
have already succeeded," Taylor wrote in 19 13 to Admiral
Goodrich, " in growing the finest autumn roses that have ever
been grown around Philadelphia, and we are hoping next
year to do still better." That these were not idle statements
is within the knowledge of all those who have seen the Boxly
gardens one gorgeous bloom of roses right up to and into the
frosts of November. Owing to the fact that the family seldom

^ As a matter of fact, like all superior men, Taylor did not wish anyone
to do things for him that he just as well could do for himself. It greatly
annoyed him, for example, to have restaurant waiters fuss over him; he
wanted the waiter to put the food down on the table and then make himself
scarce. Any exhibition of servility was painful to him.

BOXLY 201

or never remained at Boxly to encounter Philadelphia's mid-
summer heat, the gardens in general were trained by Taylor
and Bender to bloom mainly in the spring and fall. As for
the success they had with their roses in particular, it was mostly
due to the knowledge they gained of artificial or synthetic
soils through their grass-growing experiments j and as these
experiments afford a really classic example of the scientific
method, we shall devote to their review a special chapter.

CHAPTER IV

BETTER GREENS FOR GOLFERS

THROUGH his enthusiasm for golf and to provide an
outdoor sport for the family in general, Taylor
converted a rough piece of lawn at Red Gate into
an ordinarily good putting green. Taking up his permanent
residence at Boxly, he determined to have the best possible
green, and one with unique features.

Fifty feet by forty, and situated in the garden at the front
of the house, this latter green was laid out according to blue
print so as to have a " rolling " surface, or one of knolls and
depressions. The idea, of course, was to create a greater
scope for skill. Designed just for a putting game, the Boxly
green has on each of its four sides three disks marking the
points from which you start to approach the cup with the ball.
The cup is so situated away from the centre as to make the
lines of approach vary in length, and cunningly calculated
do you find the knolls and depressions to assist in making each
line present a different problem. After many experiments it
was decided to give the green a grade of three per cent.

Greens with rolling surfaces derived from the natural con-
tour of the ground have, of course, long been in usej but our
information is that, laid out in 1904, the Boxly green probably
was the first one, at least in this country, to have a rolling
surface specially planned. Since then Robert Bender has made
rolling greens for new golf courses at Whitemarsh, near Phila-
delphia, at Pine Valley, New Jersey, and at Asheville, North
Carolina i and so popular have they now become that on many
old courses they have been substituted for flat greens.

BETTER GREENS FOR GOLFERS 203

When he started to grow grass on his Boxly green, Taylor
again followed his principle of not attempting anything original
until he had mastered what at the time was considered the
best practice. He consulted the best grass experts available,
and for no less than three years, while using a " good rich
garden soil," followed their general methods.

Up to the time that the writer [Taylor] started his experiments
in the making of a putting green, the best practice consisted in
chemically analyzing the soil where the putting green was to be
made, and attempting to supply it with the fertilizer and the manure
or lime needed to put it in proper. condition for growing grass. The
soil was then plowed up, the green graded so as to have the proper
contour, and the grass was planted — just as grass had always been
planted — carefully sprinkling the seeds over the surface of the
ground and either gently raking them into the ground or covering
them with a thin sprinkling of dry soil and rolling lightly so as to
bring the seeds into close contact with the soil.^

It also was the practice to sow a variety of seeds to meet
the varying conditions, not only on the different greens of a
course, but on different parts of the same green. That is to
say, the object was to plant a sufficient variety of seeds to
make sure that all parts of the green would be covered with
grass, whether the soil were " dense or open, moisture-holding
or dry, deep or shallow, lean or well supplied with plant
food "j one kind of grass flourishing under conditions that an-
other kind finds insupportable. And Taylor added:

Another reason for sowing a variety of grasses in a green (and
this fact is appreciated by very few people) is that some of the grasses
are very slow in maturing while others are in their prime during
the first year. For example, the very finest of all grasses for making
a putting green in a moderately warm climate, creeping bent {Agrost'is

^ This quotation and others in this chapter are from Taylor's article " The
Making of a Putting Green," published in five installments in 1915 in what
was then called Country Life in America.

204 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

stolon! f era) y as ordinarily flanted requires from three to eight years
before it reaches the full stage of development in which it represents
almost the ideal putting green grass; and in the meantime some
other grass is needed to cover the green properly while the creeping
bent is in process of development.

For three years he followed, not only what experts con-
sidered the best general methods of preparing the soil and
selecting and sowing the seeds, but also what they considered
the best general methods of caring for and treating the grow-
ing grass. But though we may be sure he followed their
methods with rare intelligence, each of the three years brought
him a disappointment. At first he attributed his lack of suc-
cess to not having the right manure and fertilizer, and to a
failure to water properly.

For several years [says Van du Zee] Dr. Taylor worked with all
his ingenuity to make the green a success. The injured places were
cut out and refilled with a different soil, then seeded with much care.
At another time when the grass seemed below par, holes were punched
with a steel dibble and filled with bone meal, topped with a germi-
nating mixture. Other carefully thought out efforts were made to
get good grass. All these efforts were carefully watched, but the
watching did not help.^

It should be understood that Taylor was using only the
seeds of the " finer, more delicate grasses suitable for a putting
green." Eventually he was made to realize that the principal
cause of his failure was his " good rich garden soil," which
was " unsuitable for growing fine grass, because its grain com-
position did not permit the grass roots to penetrate as they
should, and because its moisture-holding properties were
wrong." This fact, however, he had to learn through his own
experiments. At the end of the three-year period he found
that none of the knowledge of grass-growing then existing

^ Paper prepared by Van du Zee for Memorial Meeting at Boxly. j

BETTER GREENS FOR GOLFERS 205

was of any service in meeting his problem. He wanted a
first-class putting green within a comparatively short time,
and the general opinion was that it was impossible. Ah, yes,
it was impossible. So, of course, he set out with deliberation
to get it.

As is frequently the case [he wrote] what at first started with a few
simple experiments opened out finally into quite an extensive investiga-
tion, covering many elements, the relative importance of which it
would have been difficult for anyone to foresee at the start.

It was an investigation that was carried on for about eight
years, or from about 1907 until the time of his death in 19 15.
In a note prefacing his Country Life article, he said:

Through the whole series of experiments leading up to the prepara-
tion of this article, the writer has had the constant cooperation of
his friends, Robert Bender and Harold Van du Zee. Without their
untiring assistance and work the investigation could not have been
carried on. In his writing, therefore, the author stands as the repre-
sentative of all three.

It was Taylor who directed and supervised the course of
the experiments, and furnished the inspiration. It was Ben-
der who, besides contributing his knowledge as an expert
gardener, directed the work of the men who performed the
manual labor. During Taylor's life-time about six men were
employed to assist Bender with the regular grounds and gar-
den work, but they had nothing to do with the grass-growing
experiments. For these experiments Bender had a special
force that from time to time ranged between ten and thirty.
As for Van du Zee, it was he who laid out the plans of a
civil engineering nature, had charge of the seed-germinating
and soil tests, and kept the records.

While the writer must confess [Taylor added] that his principal
reason for making these experiments was the pleasure which he

2o6 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

derived from the investigation, still, as time went on, zn<i useful
results were attained, there came the secondary object of trying to
help the golfers of the country to get better putting greens.

As a matter of fact, it was his desire to make his experi-
ments of general service that directly accounts for the scale
on which he came to conduct them. Here again his social
consciousness came to the front. We read further:

Our experiments started in a somewhat desultory way by planting
grass seeds in different soils. We soon realized, however, that if
the results obtained by us were to be of real use to grass growers
outside of the neighborhood of Philadelphia, there was little to be
gained by experimenting with natural soils.

It is practically impossible to describe a natural soil so that it can
be duplicated in another part of the country. Soils which have been
in process of formation for thousands of years are, in most cases,
so intricate in their grain composition, their organic and inorganic
food contents, their moisture-holding properties, and their penetra-
bility by grass roots, that it is impossible to describe them so that they
can be duplicated.

The words " good sandy loam " and " rich clay soil," for instance,
are entirely inadequate to indicate whether a soil is suited to grow-
ing grass or not. We, therefore, decided to experiment only with
soils artificially made by mixing together elementary materials which
can be procured in all parts of the world. ... '

Our experiments had not proceeded very far before we reached
the conclusion that a putting green could be constructed of materials
of this sort, so that a single variety of grass could be made to grow
perfectly on all parts of the green, thus securing a degree of uni-
formity in the resistance of the grass to the ball which was impossible
when, as under the old system, several kinds of grass are planted on
the same green. In other words, we proposed to find out the particular
variety of grass which will produce the finest and best surface for a
putting green, and then develop an artificial soil especially suited
to growing this grass. Our object became to suit the soil to the grass,
not the grass to the soil.

BETTER GREENS FOR GOLFERS 207

This means that, to make his grass-growing experiments
yield results that would be generally useful, he again had to
resort to his principle of standardization. His experiments,
in fine, naturally resolved themselves into a search for a stand-
ard grass and a standard soil in which to grow it. How
thorough he made them will appear from this list, taken from
his Country Life article, of the subjects he set down for in-
vestigation:

1. How to germinate the seeds.

2. The proper number of spears per square inch which should be
germinated in order to develop grass quickly.

3. How to develop the young grass plants with greatest rapidity.

4. Kind of soil in which the old roots will thrive best.

5. Kind of grasses best for making greens.

6. Nature and amount of food used in soil.

7. How to water.

8. How to mow grass. How soon and at what height.

9. How to keep out weeds.

10. How to promote rapid deep rooting.

11. Soft but firm surface on which ball will bite right in wet or
dry weather.

12. Effect of adding cover of different kinds.

13. How to prevent mildew.

14. Rolling, reason for and kind of.

15. Worms — how to prevent them.

16. The causes for sour soil, and remedies.

17. How soil should be packed in placing a green — loose and
tight packing.

18. Best and most economical methods of preparing, mixing, and
placing the materials used in making a green, including study of best
apparatus to use for this purpose.

19. The most favorable time of the year for planting seeds.

20. How best to guard against the ravages of a heavy rain storm
coming soon after green is planted.

21. Kind of food to add to older grasses.

208 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

2 2. Worm casts.

23, Depth of soil necessary.

The first seven of these subjects have called for the larger part of
our study and attention, and of these the investigation of the condi-
tions under which old grass roots thrive best has taken the most time
— chiefly, of course, because it was necessary to wait, in most cases,
about nine months for the grass to mature before definite conclusions
could be reached. It will be appreciated, of course, that many of
these elements are so interdependent that a study of one subject must,
of necessity, be closely associated with several others.

One of the first principles governing all scientific investigation,
however, is that each experiment shall involve only one single change
or innovation. And this simple rule has been closely followed by us,
although it has, of course, called for a large number of experiments.^

We also may quote in part what he wrote of the general
methods to which after two years of " rather desultory " ex-
perimenting, due to his inability immediately to grasp the
problem in all its ramifications, he eventually settled down:

^ This grass-growing investigation may be taken as exemplifying in its
thoroughness all the investigating done by Taylor in determining standards.
How, on the other hand, an " efficiency engineer " gets his standards is strik-
ingly exemplified by the remarks on potato growing made by Harrington Emer-
son in his chapter on " Standards " in his book Efficiency. " What," says Mr.
Emerson, " is the limit of yield of potatoes from an acre of ground in the
United States? The average yield per acre over a series of years is 96 bushels.
Shall we, therefore, set 100 bushels as standard 100 per cent efficiency? The
lowest average in 1907, 65 bushels, occurred in the great agricultural state
of Kansas; the highest average was in the desert State of Wyoming, 200 bushels
to the acre. The highest average in Wyoming is due to one man, who issued
a challenge of $1,000 open to all the potato growers of Colorado, that he would
raise on his Wyoming farm more potatoes per acre than anyone could raise
in Colorado, provided further that if he won the contest yet failed to raise
1,000 bushels per acre, he would forfeit the whole of the stakes, $2,000, to
charity. He won. It is psychology, not soil or climate, that enables a man to
raise five times as many potatoes per acre as the average of his own State,
ten times as many per acre as the average of the United States, thirteen times as
many as the average in the better soil and climate of Kansas. An easily
attainable standard of potato raising is therefore not 100 bushels but 500
bushels, which can be called 100 per cent efficiency."

BETTER GREENS FOR GOLFERS 209

Small plots of the different soils, whose grass growing properties
were to be investigated, were placed side by side in beds so that a
glance from one plot to another would detect even small differences
in the quality of the grass. The grass on these plots was all treated
in the best possible way so as to bring it to the greatest state of perfec-
tion before the intense heat of the summer began to cause it to
deteriorate.

Having perfected our grass, in order to prove which plot was
the best, it was necessary to subject all of them to the most severe
conditions to which grass is likely to be submitted by nature; and,
as the grass gradually deteriorated under this severe treatment, to note
those plots which showed the greatest resistance to adverse conditions.

It is only by subjecting two or more plots of grass to severe and
unfavorable conditions that it is possible to definitely decide which
is the best. If they are well treated they are all alike.

The two most severe conditions to which grass is subjected by
nature is a combination of great heat with drought, or great heat
with an excess of moisture. The climate of Philadelphia, owing to
its intense summer heat, is therefore especially favorable for making
grass experiments. It would be difficult, in fact, if not impossible,
in a cool summer climate to successfully conduct grass experi-
ments. ...

Between the fifteenth of September and the first of November
of each year, from 1 00 to 450 small plots of soil were prepared and
sowed with grass seed. For several years past we have adopted 2X2
ft. as the standard size of a plot.

Each of these plots contained only one element, affecting the
growth of the grass, which we wished to investigate. They were
all sowed with red fescue {Festuca rubra) seed because, while among
dwarf grasses red fescue is one of the finest and most virile in a cold
climate, in a hot climate (like that of Philadelphia) it is almost
impossible to make this variety of grass live through the summer
months if sowed in any ordinary soil; and a grass of this sort (diffi-
cult to grow) is needed to emphasize the differences in the soils
under investigation.

Our experiments for several years were made in duplicate; one

210 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

group of plots containing the various soils to be tested being placed
in one part of our grass garden, while a second group of exactly
similar plots was located at some distance from the first. . . .

From the time the seeds were planted until the following fall,
accurate records were kept of all important facts connected with
the growth and decline of the grass.

In the paper Van du Zee read at the Memorial Meeting
we find some Interesting side-lights on these experiments in
general :

I shall never forget from what a simple statement of basis grew
up an unfinished work covering several years of unceasing effort.
Dr. Taylor's first explanation to Mr. Bender and myself was that
grass needs nourishment, root space, air, and moisture — and for
the best meeting of these four requirements were carried out many
hundreds of growing tests, and thousands of tests of materials, re-
lating to their physical properties, source, cost, etc.

Many of the materials used in the tests were found only after long
and persistent search, involving much correspondence and many
expeditions. When the desired material was found, it was likely
to be in unsuitable condition, and then came a search for machinery
to bring it to condition. Eventually regular agricultural machines
were found that served for mixing, for cutting, for grinding, and
for shredding at relatively low costs. Gasoline engines of from ten
to twenty horsepower were needed for this work.

Every material had to be tested to show its physical character-
istics, much in the way sand is tested for use in concrete and filtra-
tion work. Nothing was taken for granted about these materials;
positive knowledge was sought and obtained as to the size of their
particles, their voids [that is, their air spaces], and their water-lifting
capacity.

A novel plan for study was carried out in the fall of 1 909. This
consisted of a concrete basin about fourteen feet square and sixteen
inches deep. The basin was built with small reservoirs for water,
and with drain outlets at different heights to control the depth of
the water in the soil.

BETTER GREENS FOR GOLFERS 211

Referring in a letter to the grass grown in this concrete
basin, Taylor said:

A rather spectacular part of my experiment is that I have suc-
ceeded in growing a grass which was planted in the month of Novem-
ber, and which went from the first of June till the first of September
without having a drop of rain or other moisture come to it from
above. A glass cover was put over it to keep the rain off, and it re-
ceived its water supply from the reservoir below, through the lifting
sands which soaked the water up from the reservoir and passed it on
up to the roots.

We experimented with lifting sands from all parts of the country,
and finally succeeded in finding sand of a particular grain composition
which will lift water as high as 48 inches from a reservoir below,
and hand it over to the grass roots. Some ordinary sands will only
lift water half an inch, some not at all, others all the way between
this and 48 inches, depending upon grain composition of the sands.

Turning again to Van du Zee's paper, we read:

It was impossible to avoid the feeling that, in carrying on these
extensive experiments. Dr. Taylor took joy in putting shop manage-
ment into the work. There was the precise classification of materials,
precisely measured proportions of the various materials that entered
into the synthetic soils, precise percentage of water to be supplied,
etc. It seemed as if Dr. Taylor had in mind a routing plan for the
roots and for the water. In arranging soils of different kinds in
layers at various levels, he made provision for the young roots, and
maturing roots, and the fully-matured roots.

We learn also from Van du Zee that Taylor's failures, as
they enabled him to eliminate certain combinations, were as
satisfactory to him as his successes. He often expressed a joy
in failure. "If it weren't for our failures," he said, " we
would learn so little! "

While he was conducting his experiments he never lost an
opportunity to investigate any promising turf that had been
formed in the ordinary way. Turf samples were brought to

212 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Boxly from many different regions, replanted there, and care-
fully treated and watched. The results obtained from this
work were practically all negative.

Now, as to the outcome of all this experimenting.

In his Country Life article, Taylor set forth his conclu-
sions and the reasons for them at length. It must suffice here
to say that the grasses he selected as standard were red fescue
and creeping bent (the former to be used where summers are
cool and the latter where summers are hot), and for the
growing of these grasses developed three types of synthetic
soil. His second type he recommended to those who might not
wish to go to the expense of the first typej while not so good
as the first, he considered it far better than any natural soil.
His third type was a cheaper soil designed for sections where
clay is difficult to procure and bar sand is available.

The best type of Taylor soil is constructed as follows: At
the bottom is a drainage layer of broken stone from three to
four inches thick. Above this are two layers of different
soils, one three inches thick and the other an inch and a half j
these layers being not horizontal but placed one on top of
the other at an angle of 45 degrees. Then above these ob-
lique layers are two horizontal layers of different soils, each
about an inch thick j and finally a very thin " seed germinat-
ing " layer of a still different soil. The materials that enter
into these layers in different combinations and proportions are
shredded peat moss, powered bone, cracked bone, powered
limestone, cow manure, clay, and " fibrous peat from the
surface of forest soil."

As was indicated by Van du Zee, these various layers are
designed to make provision for the grass roots at the various
stages of their development. So masterly was the knowledge
gained by Taylor of their development that he was able to
tell what, at each stage, they would need in the way of space,
air, food, and water.

A PART OF THE GRASS-GROWING "LABORATORY"

The concrete reservoir in which water was fed to the grass from

below so as absolutely to control the moisture conditions. Each

square of grass represents a separate experiment

BUILDING SYNTHETIC SUIL l.\ oBLlr-. , ., , . .,,x , k AL L.\\ ERS-

BETTER GREENS FOR GOLFERS 213

In a note introducing Taylor's putting-green article, the
editor of Country Life said:

On November 2 [1914] I went to Philadelphia and examined
scores of experimental grass plots, together with three putting greens
on the new Sunnybrook Golf Club's course. These last had been
sown only five and a half weeks before — and in a late season for
sowing grass. The grass was so well developed that the greens could
have been played upon even then, and, owing to the peculiar quality
of the soil, without the least danger to the tender young blades. On
the same course were other greens, sown at the same time in the old
way, bearing eloquent testimony to the superior grass, conformation,
and surface texture of Mr. Taylor's greens.

Bender tells us that the best of the ordinary greens cost,
in those days before the World War, from $600 to $700 each.
The best Taylor green (10,000 sq. ft.) cost $2,500. But
whereas the ordinary green costs from $100 to $200 a year
for upkeep (feeding and seeding), the Taylor green practi-
cally abolishes the cost of upkeep j constant feeding and' seed-
ing being done away with, and the green needing only to be
mowed and watered. The ordinary green, again, has to be
watered every few days, whereas the Taylor green has to
be watered only once in two or three weeks.

Nearly a year, we are told, is required to bring the ordinary
green to a condition where it can be played on; and then, if
the desire is to have a green anywhere near first class, several
more years must elapse. A Taylor green, on the other hand,
not only is ready to play on in about two months, but in less
than a year develops into a practically ideal green, owing to the
fact that its synthetic soil makes it unnecessary at the start to
grow more than one kind of grass, and the single grass which
in it can be brought quickly to usable condition is of the best
type for putting. In making the greens for the Pine Valley
course. Bender began the work on April 4, and the greens

214 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

actually were used on the following June lo. A Taylor green
can be played on after a heavy rain and throughout the win-
ter j in freezing and thawing, the turf rises and falls, not in
sections, but as a mass. It is a green of extraordinary flexi-
bility j dig your heel into it, and immediately it springs back.
" The more you walk on it," says Bender, " the better."
Moreover, it is a green which, consisting of a single kind of
grass, favors scientific putting by offering a uniform resistance
to the ball.

After pointing out in his article that the object of his ex-
periments became " to suit the soil to the grass, not the grass
to the soil," Taylor went on to say:

The practice of using the soil as it happens to exist where the
putting green is to be located, and of adding manure and fertilizer
to improve it, has been so universal, hov^^ever, that most grass growers
will look upon as an extravagance the cost of transporting from a
distance materials for making a putting green, and will question
whether the members of the club would be willing to pay the cost.
The writer is convinced, however, that this objection will not long
prevail. The success of a golf course and the pleasure of its mem-
bers depend more upon the condition of its greens than upon any
other single element, and where large sums are spent in purchasing
land, building a club house, and making roads leading to the club,
the money will be forthcoming for making greens which will be
perfect within a year rather than to wait for several years while
greens are being gradually improved, frequently at great annual ex-
pense, by adding properly prepared soil on top of the grass, and re-
sowing, so that in the end the green planted on the natural soil costs
far more than the artificial green.

Thus here once more we see exemplified the Taylor princi-
ple of prudential spending, of royal economy. And now let
us consider the thing that inspired these grass-growing ex-
periments of his J namely, his work at golf — and as here
used, work certainly is the word.

CHAPTER V

ON THE LINKS

IN A letter we already have quoted, he said that his ob-
ject in playing golf was to attain a "proper balance
between mental work and some form of out-of-door
physical exercise and relaxation." That this game was en-
tirely suited to this need of his, may be questioned. No
other game, it is said, requires such a variety of physical and
mental adjustments. Probably in the case of most men, the
mental element is so different from that which enters into
their regular work as to provide a mental change which is in it-
self a recreation. In Taylor's case, the thinking stimulated by
golf, having to do with the nature and use of tools, was all
too closely allied with his customary thinking. Then we
know that golfers in general are prone to worry over their
game, and it would seem that no game could have been better
designed in general to arouse in Taylor his terrible spirit of
earnestness.

This aside, we must realize that in attacking golf at the
country clubs where he played from the same scientific angle
he attacked industrial problems, he showed remarkable cour-
age, as courage is called for to disregard that old question,
" What will people think? " and to stick to a course in the
face of ridicule. Probably it took more courage of this kind
for him to experiment with golf style than he ever had to
summon up when questioning industrial implements and
methods. For years — in fact, for centuries — people had
been playing golf in the same general way, or in the general

\

21 6 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

style that originated with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club
of St. Andrews, Scotland. Golfers aimed to copy the St.
Andrews style simply because it had become hallowed by
five hundred years of tradition. Not only this, but in the
early days the " royal and ancient " game was played in knee
breeches, swallow-tailed coats, and top hats, and all along it
has had bound up with it such a tradition of form in general
that it would appear that many golfers have come to view any
departure from conventionality as nothing short of morally
shocking. There are rumors indeed that among the members
of some clubs out-and-out snobs are not unknown. However
that may be, there is reason to believe that in the vicinity of
Philadelphia to this day are not a few men to whom Frederick
Taylor's character and achievements, his lofty spirit of service
and the crystal purity of his whole life, count for little or
nothing beside the fact that, in applying his scientific mind to
golf, he calmly ignored the old traditions and played the
game in a highly unconventional way.

First as to his innovations in the way of implements.

The boldest of these was his putter. Even the non-golfer
probably knows that the old-time putter is shaped like other
golf clubs in the respect that a straight shaft joins the head at
one end of the head. Taylor's putter, as will be seen from
the accompanying illustration, had the general shape of the
capital letter Y. Previously a departure had been made from
the old-time putter by having the shaft enter the head at a
point about a third of the distance from one end of the head.
Taylor's was the first to have the shaft enter the head at a
point midway between the two ends. But the extreme bold-
ness of his innovation lay in the forking arms. Directly fac-
ing the line from ball to hole, he swung this putter from
between his legs, while the forking arms rested against his
own forearms J the idea being that in this way the putter was
made easier to hold. From the beginning the forking arms

ON THE LINKS 217

were the subject of controversy, and eventually the United
States Golf Association passed a rule prohibiting their use.

While not so extraordinary as his putter, his mashie was
highly original also. For the benefit of those who have not
been initiated into these mysteries, we may explain that a
mashie is an iron-headed club often used, in approaching the
putting green, to shoot the ball up into the air and cause it to
drop dead. To get a better back spin on the ball and thus
assist the dropping dead operation, Taylor began by making
the face of the mashie slightly ribbed. This, we understand,
is now fairly common j but at length he went away beyond
this and had set into the face a regular file, which projected
below the head so as to dig slightly into the turf.

The length and thickness of the shafts of his clubs was
the subject of almost innumerable experiments on his part,
and in the course of them he had scores of clubs made. Even-
tually he evolved a driver about ten inches longer than the
usual one, and with a much thinner lower shaft. The idea
of the greater length was to give greater speed and momen-
tum to the head of the club, and the idea of the thinner shaft
was to give greater flexibility. So as to give the thin shaft
strength he wound it with wire instead of the usual cordj and
for this winding operation ran the wire through a pulley sus-
pended from the ceiling, a weight being attached to the wire
at its free end. The study he gave to the balancing of his
clubs may be gathered from this extract from a letter he
wrote in 191 1 to Professor William Kent, author of the
celebrated engineering handbook:

There is a question which I have been intending to ask you for
some time. If I remember rightly, you had considerable to do at
one time with the manufacture of scales. I want to get a small
pair of scales which will weigh within an eighth of an ounce. In
order to get my golf clubs of exactly the right balance, I have found
that to do so I must lay the extreme end of the handle of the club

21 8 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

say on the edge of one table, while I put the scales on another table
and rest the club head on the scales. I then adjust the weight in the
head of the club until it is accurately weighted to one-eighth of an
ounce, and this enables me to exactly reduplicate two different drivers.
I have not been able to find, however, a pair of scales which was
in any way portable and which was delicate enough to weigh accu-
rately within one-eighth of an ounce. I believe that the way in which
the club head is placed upon the scales under these conditions makes a
great difference in weight. If the least lateral pull or push accom-
panies the laying of the club down on the scales, it will modify the
weight to the extent of half an ounce.

By themselves his clubs sufficed to startle his fellow golfers,
but the big sensation was created by his methods of using
them. Here again, of course, was endless experimenting,
endless practice. It is said that he practised before breakfast,
during breakfast, and after breakfast.

When the forking arms of his putter were barred (and the
barring caused him many a pang), he retained the novel
lower part, lengthened the shaft, and continued to swing the
putter from between his legs. This proceeding naturally was
considered queer, to say the least j but it was his driving that
more particularly made the sensation, and as near as we can get
at it, the manner of it was this: He began by slowly and de-
liberately planting his feet at what he considered just the
proper angle. The ideal of most golfers, we believe, is to
stand with feet far enough apart to give the body stability
and close enough together to give the body mobility 5 but he,
apparently, was willing to sacrifice stability for the sake of
getting greater force into his body, and so, with knees well
bent, he stood with his feet closer together than is customary.
The novelty of his stance, however, chiefly lay in the fact
that, whereas it is conventional for the player to stand with
his feet in a line parallel with the direction the ball is to take,
he stood with his feet in a line at an oblique angle to this

THE PUTTING GREEN AT BOXLY

Made from synthetic soil, and probably the first one to have a rolling

surface specially planned. In backg^round is seen old greenhouse built by

Count du Barry

TAYLOR'S HIGHLY UNIQUE PUTTER

ON THE LINKS 219

direction. The result of this stance was that in swinging
to the upper or beginning limit he could and did swing his
body farther around than would be possible with the conven-
tional stance. At the upper limit, in fact, his back practically
was to the direction the ball was to take, and to see the ball he
had to screw his head around. Revolving his long club till
it finally began to revolve in the direction he wanted it to
take, he, with body and arms going together, would swing
through, pivoting on the ball of his left foot.

The manager of one course were he often played never
saw him start to drive off without a shudder, and till the per-
formance was finished, he would stare off into dreamy space
or straight up at the high blue vault of heaven. And many
were the persons who, prone to seek excuses, were in the
habit of complaining that Taylor's playing put them off their
game. A deal of querulousness among golfers, it would seem.

It is certain that if he went right on playing in his own pecu-
liar style despite the amusement it provided for and the pain it
gave to others, it was due to no lack of sensibility. As a matter
of fact, he was a man of unusually keen sensibilities 5 and
while we do not pretend to know all that went on within him,
the evidence is that in the course of many years of being
ridiculed and called crazy he built up a defence mechanism
that finally enabled him to attain considerable success in be-
lieving that he really enjoyed that sort of thing. It is plain,
however, that his defense mechanism by no means worked
perfectly. Writing in 191 1 to Walter J. Travis, then editor
of The American Golfer^ he said:

I appreciate very much the kind thought in your letter of December
29th, in which you ask me to send you one of my photographs for
reproduction.

Unfortunately, my style in playing the game is so very bad that I
have become more or less the laughing-stock of the game, and for
this reason I avqid playing anywhere except where I have a good

220 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

many friends who realize that I am not very proud of my style, and
have adopted it for the lack of something better, not for the sake of
either making an ass of myself or for notoriety.

I feel, therefore, that putting my picture in your paper vi^ould only
result in reminding people of my golf peculiarities, of w^hich I am in
no sense proud.

As a matter of fact, his friends got no end of fun out of
rallying him on his playing, knowing that he always could be
depended upon to respond in kind. In 191 1, when he sud-
denly came into magazine and newspaper fame as the father
of Scientific Management, one of his golf cronies, George A.
White, threatened to " expose " him.

I will get me a motion picture machine [wrote Mr. White] and
hie me to Philadelphia, and when a certain man comes out at the
Philadelphia C. C. I will unlimber my gun and take two miles of
motion pictures of him in various attitudes (surrounded by flying
divots) and then tour the country with the films, exhibit them at
Harvard, and say to them: " Look at this alleged scientist! Can he
know anything about science when he plays golf in such a fashion? "

To this Mr. White, Taylor wrote later in this year of 191 1
as follows:

Your mind seems to run entirely to implements, while m.ine has been
working rather in the direction of motion study. I wish it were
possible to convey to you an adequate impression of some of the beauti-
ful movements that I have been working up during the past year.
The only possible drawback to them is that the ball still refuses to
settle down quietly into the cup, as it ought to, and also in most cases
declines to go either in the direction that I wish or the required dis-
tance. Aside from these few drawbacks, the theories are perfect.

Now, it is said that the emotion aroused in a stranger by
Taylor's stance and stroke at driving was as nothing compared
to the emotion that followed when this same stance and
stroke resulted, as it often did, in a 250-yard drive on level

ON THE LINKS 221

ground. That such a performance could produce such a re-
sult was to the average man amazing j and this should lead
us to see that, however queer Taylor's clubs and methods
seemed to others, and however modestly or humorously he
himself might refer to his style, there was a reason for every-
thing he did.

The superior accuracy of his putter, both with and without
the forking arms, was attested by others besides himself.
And there apparently is much to support the opinion that his
style of putting was far more scientific than the ordinary style.
It will be recalled that, instead of standing sidewise to the
ball as is customary, he directly faced the ball on the line
from it to the hole and swung the putter from between his
legs. It is said that his position gave him the line with supe-
rior accuracy and stability, and having once got the line, he
had to think only of distance. " He was slightly better in
putting than in other departments," says his nephew Edward
W. Clark, 3rd, "and probably more of his games were won
on the putting green than is usually the case." His mashie
is held to have been scientific, in that its file, assisted by his
choppy stroke, enabled him to give to the ball a wonderful
back spin. We have seen that the ten inches he added to his
driver was designed to give to the head of the club greater
speed and momentum, and it is here to be brought out that his
highly individual stance and stroke was designed, not only to
bring into play muscles of the back and shoulder that are
neglected in the conventional stroke of the professional ex-
pert, but also to give him the benefit of an unusually strong
right-hand wrist action, or one arising from an under grip or
turning of the hand beneath the club.

Just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so the
proof of the general science of one's game is in the general
results. Once, in discussing the way his style was commonly
regarded, Taylor quietly remarked : " Well, I notice that every

222 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

year I hang up a few more scalps in my lodge." In 1896,
when he took up the game, he was forty years oldj and there
can be no doubt that the results he attained were decidedly
above the average for those who do not begin until this late
in life. His Philadelphia handicap was eight. On the whole,
he had large success in tournament playj though he did not
win any big scratch tournaments, he did win a number of
handicap events, and also was several times either the winner
or the runner-up in the lower divisions of scratch tournaments.
Sometimes his playing was remarkable, as when on the cham-
pionship Ekwanok course at Manchester, Vermont, he made
a seventy-six.

It probably will occur to many that he took his golf too
seriously. It is all very well to make of business a sport, but
not very well to make of sport a business. His most devoted
friends among his fellow golfers were inclined to view the
length to which he carried his experiments as an amiable fail-
ing. If foible it was, he carried it so gracefully that it but
endeared him to his friends the more. He did not swear
when he foozled, and never did he have any excuses. On the
other hand, he was most sympathetic with an opponent's bad
luck. His courtesy was never failing, and with the duffer
he was very patient. His genial, sociable nature was seen on
the links at its best. However, for all his geniality, he
deprecated hilarity at the " nineteenth hole," and refused to
participate even in such gambling as that for a ball a hole.

When he was at Boxly, he played occasionally on the
nearby Chestnut Hill links of the Philadelphia Cricket Club,
but usually preferred to go the greater distance to the Phil-
adelphia Country Club at Bala, mainly because the Chestnut
Hill course was not as " non-ball-losing " as the Bala course,
and he vigorously objected to the loss of time involved in
hunting for balls. On all occasions he dressed for little else
but utility, and his golf costume was plain to a fault. ^* Wear-

ON THE LINKS 223

ing a little linen cap in summer and a heavier cap at other
seasons," says his son Kempton, " he simply took off his coat
and collar, put on a sweater, and played." In stormy or cold
weather he wore over a sleeveless sweater a leather coat
lined with red flannel. For years a rainstorm to him was
only a " dew," and heavy had to be the snowfall which could
keep him off the links. But eventually there came a change
in this particular. While at Manchester, Vermont, in the
summer of 191 1, he wrote to Mr. Babbott:

I have had fewer interruptions to the serious work of playing golf
this month than for over a year past. So far have only been away
from Manchester twice and then for a short period. We came here
on the first of August, and I plunged at once into tournament play.
I notice that my old age [he was then fifty-five] begins to diminish
my enthusiasm for tournament play. I dislike to play morning and
afternoon and have reached a time when I absolutely refuse to go
through a rain.

Continuing, he said:

During this month on the whole, however, I have developed the
best play that I ever had. I was fortunate enough to qualify
tenth in a list of 150 odd players who entered the large tournament,
and then had three very close matches with players who were almost
in the first class. I succeeded in beating Dr. Gardiner, who has been
one of the crack players this year in many tournaments.

CHAPTER VI

EN FAMILLE

IN THE afternoon he was at his wife's disposal whenever
she wished to take a drive or go for a walk, and in the
evening he belonged to his family entirely. As his son
Kempton matured and came to know something of the load
of care Mr. Taylor carried in the outside world, he marveled
at his father's ability to shake it all ofF and become another
person as soon as he left his workroom or came home in the
evening.

Like his father before him, he was in the habit of gather-
ing his family about the evening lamp while he read to them.
No introspective literature. No morbid stuflF of any kind.
Standard fiction such as the works of Scott and Dickens.
Tales, too, of school life. Outdoor stuff in plenty. Cowboy
tales of the " Hopalong Cassidy " order, and records of pluck
and grit such as Dillon Wallace's The Lure of the Labrador
Wild. A piece of writing that particularly delighted him
was one entitled The Will of Charles Lounsburyy in which,
among other things, was bequeathed to young men " all bois-
terous inspiring sports of rivalry " and " disdain of weakness
and undaunted confidence in their own strength."

He was a fine reader. He had a gift for the dramatic.
He could render perfectly, or so it seemed, any kind of dialect.
His articulation neglected no syllable. But there was more
of it than this. His whole intonation commonly was different
from what it was at other times. His modulations were
fine, his accents chaste. Much of this same way of speaking
he assumed, along with the general manner that went with

224

EN FAMILLE 225

it, when he was with women of superior breeding. He
charmed these women. If you might say it was a speech and
manner largely put on for the occasion, it was done with sim-
plicity and grace. Undoubtedly it was based on an inherent
graciousness and kindliness, and it surely was more natural
to him than the special manner he assumed at the mill.

His courtesy in his own household had a high order of
continuity. It apparently had only such lapses as may be
attributed to the eccentricities of genius, or rather to the ab-
sorption of genius. The one particular in which he seemed
markedly inconsiderate of others had to do with the keeping
of his engagements. |You could hardly, as the saying is, get
him to a wedding in time for the christening. He seemed to
think that if he was not more than forty-five minutes late at
a dinner, it was all right.

The intensive training of these boys continued at Boxly.
Says Kempt on:

In the fall of 1904, we started in at the Chestnut Hill Academy.
Both of us were rather disinclined to push ourselves into the school
activities; so papa had us don our football clothes, walk a mile to
the field, and join a squad of boys v^^ho were five or six years older
than we. For several months we continued in this fashion to and
from the football field, while our older playmates dressed in the
locker rooms. This was in accordance with papa's oft-repeated in-
junction, " Get into the game." Whether we were of use to that
football squad made little or no difi^erence. Activity was the all-
important thing; and activity was demanded of us as rigorously in the
class-room as on the athletic field. Over and over again he would
say: " I don't know which is the more important — the studies or the
athletics; but I suppose the studies come first." Evidently, however,
we were the more deficient in athletics; for with characteristic un-
conventionality he engaged one of the school's older boys to take
charge of our athletics through one winter. Most of the boys came
to school in carriages or automobiles, but only occasionally were we
allowed such a luxury.

226 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

He was interested in all phases of our early education. When we
were almost through school, he discovered in us an amazing ignorance
of geography, which is not required for college entrance, and is
therefore likely to be neglected in the last years of the prep school
curriculum. Papa asked the headmaster of the Chestnut Hill Acad-
emy to investigate this matter; and as a result, the entire upper school
was given a quiz in geography. He took great interest in some of
our masters, and about 19 lo was appointed to the Board of Trustees.

Great was his indignation when he heard that the teacher
of English at that school had given the pupils the task of
criticizing the message to Congress that just had been issued
by the President j that school boys should pick over the words
of the President, he considered sacrilege.

Upon being graduated from the Chestnut Hill Academy,
Kempton went to Haverford College, and then took the
course in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Robert,
the younger son, went to Cornell University, there eventually
to study engineering. While he was at the academy, Robert
found his father chiefly interested in the reports of his punc-
tuality and conduct. When he was at college, his father
talked over with him his courses in detail, pointed out their
application to every-day life, and advised him how to
specialize.

That Kempton was free to study medicine may be taken as
illustrative of the fact that the discipline to which Taylor
submitted his sons was far from being actuated by a desire to
make them over into copies of himself. He expressed to
Kempton his wonder that anyone should wish to be a physician j
personally he never could have taken up a work that constantly
brought him in contact with illness and suffering. His train-
ing of his sons was the very opposite of suppressive j the
whole object was to make them assert themselves. He never
talked down to them. He was one of them. His own writ-
ings he gave to Kempton to criticize, albeit his object seemed

MRS. FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

EN FAMILLE 227

to be partly that of having with Kempton a little fun. Sar-
casm was with him a favorite corrective weapon. When the
boys took advantage of their Easter holidays to lie late, they re-
ceived from him this note written on Boxly's formal corre-
spondence paper: " Mr. and Mrs. Fred W. Taylor request
the pleasure of your company at breakfast every morning
during vacation to meet Miss Elizabeth P. A. Taylor any
time say before noon."

He persistently trained them in persistency. He and
Kempton had attended a public meeting in New York on a
Saturday night. The next morning, while they were sitting
in the ferry house waiting for a boat to take them to their
train in Jersey City, Kempton looked over his Sunday news-
paper, with its many supplements, to see if he could find any
notice of the meeting. Having started the quest, he was not
permitted by his father to quit until he had examined
thoroughly every page of every supplement. One day Kemp-
ton could get no response when trying to ring up the stable
from the house at Boxlyj keep him at it his father did for
fully half an hour.

Those boys must learn to recognize the main issue, and act
accordingly. The concrete reservoir placed in the putting
green in connection with the grass-growing experiments was
discovered by them to be leaking. Having on their good
clothes, they hesitated to do anything about it until their fa-
ther appeared. Then instant action on their part was ordered.
" Never mind your clothes. Stop the leak. Get the thing
done."

They must fulfill all the obligations of politeness. Robert
was remiss in acknowledging a Christmas present. His fa-
ther spoke to him about it repeatedly, until there came an
evening when Master Robert was allowed just five minutes
to start writing that letter. Son was stubborn, and father
got out his watch. " One, two, three, four, five," the minutes

228 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

were counted off j and then they continued their session up-
stairs. The next morning when Robert came down, his fa-
ther stood at the foot of the stairs waiting for him, and
Robert received from his father a large wink. And he winked
back. They had had it out.

With his horror of illness, he must needs assume the
responsibility, under the physician's orders, of restoring to
health any member of the family who was ill. He would
insist on getting from the physician detailed instructions,
preferably in writing. He believed in preventive medicine
especially. It was his policy to have every member of the fam-
ily go regularly to their physician for a thorough examination.
At the same time, he had some medical ideas of his own.
His remedy for colds was principally that of sitting by the
fire and piling on the clothing. He believed in dressing
warm at all times. He was a great hand in cold weather for
sweaters, robes, and blankets. He would buy fur-lined gloves
for the whole family.

On the subject of clothes it may be mentioned that he
never wore anything in the way of formal morning or after-
noon dress J a plain sack business suit always was good enough
for him. And it was with reluctance that he ever wore formal
evening dress. He would dress for dinner to please the
ladies, or if he was in a place, such as a resort hotel, where
everybody did it, but probably always resented it as a waste of
time. It would appear that the general plainness of his attire
was due to Quaker inheritance and his belief that time was
too valuable to give any more of it to dress than was
necessary. He wore shoes of the gaiter type just for the
reason that they could be put on and taken off without one's
having to spend time either with laces or buttons.

Perfection is not for mortals j and excessively rigorous at
times Taylor's training of his sons may have beenj though
Kempton, in speaking of the discipline to which he was sub-

EN FAMILLE 229

jected, does say that the only mistake his father made was in
not giving him enough of it. He feels that he owes much
to his father if only for making him realize something of
the value of time. But it was in the matter of his sportman-
ship that Taylor made the deepest impression upon his sons.
That everything hard or disagreeable can readily be faced by
the simple process of turning it into a sporting event — it is
in connection with this principle that by his sons Frederick
Taylor is chiefly remembered.

Keeping in mind the value he placed on athletics as a means
of developing pluck and grit, we may easily understand the
satisfaction he felt when Kempton at Haverford made the
gymnasium team, and Robert at Cornell made the freshman
baseball team and proved himself one of the best boxers and
wrestlers in his class.

Writing home to his daughter while he and Mrs. Taylor
were in Europe, he closed his letter with this remark: "Give
a great deal of love to all at home, and do not forget my
little intellectual friend who is so fond of dressing in furs.
I expect he is very happy that spring has come again." It
would have been strange indeed if Taylor had neglected to
mention the cat the family had acquired in Bethlehem. His
name was Putmut, a name reached by Taylor through a pro-
cess of " cat talk " such as " pretty putty, pretty mutty."
One day in his kittenhood he caught a weasel and brought it
home alive. O kitten full of puck and grit! was it any won-
der that he walked straight into one of the warmest spots in
Frederick Taylor's heart! Developing into a handsome
specimen of mature and prosperous cathood at Red Gate, he
remained at Boxly one of the most important members of the
household. Often when Taylor read after dinner, his cat
would lie on his shoulder. That this compelled him to bend
his head and hold his book at an uncomfortable angle, made no
difference. When Putmut was sick, he too was nursed, and

230 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

also he got disciplined as occasion might require it. The first
summer the family were at Boxly he would not venture out
because the work of the men and horses in digging away the
hill back of the house got badly on his nerves. No sooner was
he taken out than he would dart back. What! day after day
with no outdoor exercise! That would never do. So Taylor
attached a cord to the cat's collar, and proceeded to drag him
out. It was all done — systematically. Each day Putmut
was dragged a bit farther, until finally dragger and dragee
got away down to Bender's lodge. Naturally Putmut was
scandalized, and there is no doubt that Taylor hated to do it.
It hurt him far more than it did Putmut. But duty was duty.
When his friend had time to act as his amanuensis, Putmut
became quite a ready letter writer. In the letters Mrs. Tay-
lor's mother, Mrs. Spooner, received from him he was wont
to express quite frankly his opinion of the other members of
the family, and at the bottom was an impression of his paw in
ink with the words, " Putmut, his mark," None of these
letters were preserved 3 but here is a letter to Putmut written
by Taylor at a resort hotel in the south:

Dear Put:

That was a great joke you played on all the family about that gray
Tom Cat. As you say, he is the same old thing that you chase around
every night and practice boxing with just to keep your hand in. You
must be careful, however, as you know they have a small sense of
humor and are likely to take it in dead earnest when you are just
fooling with them.

Have you taught him to catch rats? My advice to you is to have
no rats around; either make him a useful cat or drive him away.
Bender writes that you are a great help to him in laying out the
garden, and that he thinks of turning over the care of the carnations
and similar flowers entirely to you. Do not give up instructing the
boys in tops and marbles, however, and try to teach them to jump.
You say you have small hopes of their equalling you in this; but
never mind, keep right on.

I

EN FAMILLE 231

Your handwriting is changing somewhat; looks rather effeminate
in spots. Perhaps you are associating too much with the girls.
Mamma is now listening to a concert, and a young lady has just fin-
ished singing whose voice reminds me of yours. She was giving us a
nocturne, I think. Give love to all those kids and keep them in
order. You did not mention the pigeons. Keep your eye on the
boys and make them feed and water regularly.

Your loving Fred.

In another letter to Putmut, written by Taylor when he was
South, the irrepressible imp in this man of many sides and
parts still further appears:

Dear Put:

I was very much pleased to note the progress you are making on the
typewriter, as well as to see the improvement in your English style.
At times I have thought that your diction was not altogether plain
and that your style was somewhat involved, but this letter shows a
marked improvement. I appreciate your delicacy in not blurting
right out everything that you wish to say. I was, however, able to
read between the lines.

By this time I think you must be pretty well convinced that your
policy of using excessive tact and giving delicate suggestions to those
boys is not working altogether satisfactorily. Of course you are
right in doing everything possible to make them less runty and stop
them from reading newspapers and get them out of doors. I must
say it was tactful on your part to try to interest them in nature by
sitting at the window looking out at the landscape; but you must
yourself by this time doubt whether those boys have even caught on.
Likely as not they misunderstood your motive entirely, and I think
that for the rest of the time you had better use what may be called
more drastic measures.

It is, of course, tactful on your part to get Robert up in the morn-
ing by the indirect means of quietly switching your tail against
Kempton's nose,, and then after he is up, urging him to persuade
Robert to get up, but by this time you must also see that this quite
ingenious scheme is not working.

232 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Now let me suggest that the better method would be just at the
psychological moment to grab Robert by the ear and using all the ex-
perience you have had in the tug-of-war, land him gently but firmly
on the floor. After that I think it would be tactful for you to leave.
You see, those boys lack what might be called your finesse, and the
more delicate expedients of suggestion and mental telepathy will
hardly penetrate their skulls.

On the whole, it seems to me rather rough on you that you should
be obliged to do most of your reading at night. As you say, however,
those boys need more out-of-door life and less books, and they would
be very apt to follow your example if they saw you reading very
much in the daytime.

Bender has written me that he appreciates very much your help in
the greenhouse and in the care of the place. He said he thought he
would turn the conservatory entirely over to you. He writes me that
your scheme for ridding the place of rats has worked perfectly, and
that you have so terrorized the dogs that there has not been a single
piece of broken glass throughout the winter.

Mary also writes that your attendance and regularity at meals is
remarkable. She speaks with sadness in this respect, however, about
the boys, chiefly Robert. Now, again, this is very tactful on your
part, but those boys require difi"erent treatment. My suggestion is
to give them five minutes grace at every meal and then simply bite.
You will find this will beat tact all hollow.

It is truly unfortunate that they are giving you so much worry;
as you say, they worry you even more than the care of all your money.
Lou and I both sympathize with you.

Give love to Auntie Anna, from

Your aflFectionate friend.

CHAPTER VII

HIS CAMPAIGN AND ITS MOTIVES

A PURELY residential place is Chestnut Hill. And a
place, in the main, of solid and substantial residences
set among pridefully-cultivated lawns and gardens;
the effect of solidity being heightened by the stone and brick
construction made necessary by Philadelphia's ordinances.
You would say that it was a conservative as well as conven-
tional sort of place, and therefore almost the last place where
you would expect to find carried on a campaign for a new order
in industrial management.

But Taylor was remarkable for nothing more than the
co-existence in him of the conservative and the radical. He
was at home in a place like Chestnut Hill. He had all the
pride in home characteristic of Philadelphians in general. At
the same time he saw no reason why he should not fly in the
face of local tradition and turn his home into a semi-public
institution. In point of fact, he derived a deep satisfaction
from throwing open his home to all and sundry.

When in 1908 he was cross-examined in the suit over the
high-speed patents, he said:

My specialty as a consuking engineer since 1893 ^^^ ^^^'^ ^^^^ of
organizing the management of manufacturing establishments of va-
rious kinds, including their office and business ends. . . . During the
latter years — that is, since leaving the Bethlehem Steel Company —
my work in this field has been that of helping, teaching and super-
intending my former assistants and their friends in their work of or-
ganization. Since leaving the Bethlehem Steel Company, this work

233

234 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

had been done by me without pay and for the purpose of training
other men in my profession.

Of course it is the duty of every lawyer to discredit the
witness appearing in opposition. So to Taylor was put this
question : " You are something of a philanthropist also, it
appears.? "

I should say not [was the reply]. I am very much interested in the
subject of modern, scientific shop management, and believe I can do
more for my friends and the world at large by devoting my energies
to this work than I can in any other way.

When he announced his intention of giving up money mak-
ing but going on working just the same, he said: " I suppose
people will think I am a fool." And when his fellow Phil-
adelphian, Joseph Fels, wrote him in an effort to interest him in
the single-tax propaganda, his comment was : " There is a man
who is even crazier than I am." Of course, no one who had
the least acquaintance with him considered him a fool in all
particulars, but there is reason to believe that the great majority
of his social acquaintances regarded this particular action as
highly eccentric, and that even those who were closest to him
were inclined to be amused by it as a piece of amiable folly.

Now what was the motive — or, at any rate, the principal
one — that actuated this extraordinary course of his? His
correspondence shows that he himself was entirely sure what
it was.

In 1909, writing to Herbert L. Clark, a brother of his
sister's husband, about the Philadelphia Cricket Club, he said:

My dear Herbert:

In answer to your letter of November I2th, I am sorry that I
shall not be able to contribute very substantially toward the comple-
tion of the new Club House. I can assure you, however, that I am
very greatly interested in the success of the Club.

HIS CAMPAIGN AND ITS MOTIVES 235

I feel that I ought to explain to you somewhat at length my in-
ability to contribute to this fund. I have been out of business, that
is, money-making business, for about nine years, and during this
period I have devoted all of my spare time to the object of promoting
modern scientific management. In this I feel I can accomplish more
than I could in any other way, because it has been practically my life's
work; and I also think it is my duty to devote my time and money to
this cause, for the reason that there is no one else in this country who
is in a position to accomplish what I am able to do in this direction.
Now, during all of these years I have spent every cent which could
be spared from my income in furthering this cause and during a con-
siderable part of the time I have been obliged every year to encroach
upon my principal in order to carry on the work which I am doing.
I feel that every dollar which I spend on this work will come back
a thousandfold in the future to the people of this country. This
work, you will realize, can in no sense be looked upon as a charity,
and I am entirely unable therefore to appeal for financial aid to
anyone. It is for this reason that I find myself unable to contribute,
except in a small way, to other charities or enterprises in which I am
vitally interested, and among these is the Cricket Club.

It is more than likely that you do not appreciate what is being
accomplished by the introduction of modern scientific management
in this country. I suppose there are now about 50,000 men working
under the new plan, and among these there has never been a single
strike. The workmen are being paid on the average more than 30%
higher wages than are received by others at similar work all around
them, and the companies which operate under this system are earning
much higher dividends than their competitors. It is, however, the
promotion of harmony between employers and their workmen that
is my chief interest. The earning of large dividends for the com-
panies is, of course, the great attraction to the manufacturing con-
cerns, but is of minor interest to me and my associates.

This letter is typical of several he wrote when he felt it
necessary to explain the comparative smallness of his con-
tributions to causes other than his own.

Writing in 19 12 to Dr. Lyman Abbott, he said:

236 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Since retiring from money-making business, some twelve years ago,
I have been devoting my whole time, and also every cent of money
which I can spare from my income, to promoting the cause of scien-
tific management; and my object in this work is primarily, I may say
almost entirely, that of securing a larger measure of prosperity and
happiness for the working people.

I am, of course, and ought to be, interested in the material welfare
of the companies who are using scientific management; but if the
result of my work were merely to increase the dividends and the
prosperity of the manufacturing companies, I certainly should not
devote my time to this object.

Scientific management is for me, then, primarily a means of
bettering the condition of the working people.

It already has been suggested that you hardly would sus-
pect that Taylor had such motives as this from reading Shof
Management. His own idea of what lay behind the seeming
bias of his paper in favor of the employer appears in some
correspondence he had in 19 14 with A. J. Portenar, a mem-
ber of Typographical Union No. 6.

Mr. Portenar had written a book, Problems of Organized,
Labory which impressed Morris L. Cooke as being so fair
and broadminded that he brought it to Taylor's attention.
Pleased also with the spirit of the book, Taylor invited its
author to come to Boxly and then visit the plants in Philadel-
phia where Scientific Management was to be seen in opera-
tion. Portenar did so, and the two made rather stormy
weather of it. Before they parted — this was in March —
Portenar promised to read Shop Management. On the fol-
lowing June I, he wrote Taylor a long letter — on a linotype
machine, by the way — in which letter, among other things,
he said:

I have finished the reading of Shop Management and am now for
that reason somewhat better qualified to discuss the matter with you
than I was on that snowy day last March. The essential difi^erence

HIS CAMPAIGN AND ITS MOTIVES 237

between us was clear to me then, but you disputed it. It is even more
clear to me now, and I am better able to meet your refutation. While
we were walking to the first plant we visited, we spoke of regarding
this question from the side of the men, and I said you could not do it.
You very sharply replied, " How do you know I cannot; I have
been a workingman." There was more discussion at that time, but
it was futile, and because I knew it must be so, I relinquished the
point for the time.

We view and feel about this thing from two very different stand-
points, you and I. I shall formulate the two views thus:

You desire the greatest possible production at the lowest possible
cost with the greatest possible resulting dividend, and the benefits
that may flow to the working people are merely incidental. They are
not the object of your management, they are but means whereby you
hope to attain your object.

I desire the greatest possible benefit to the people who work and
consume, and I regard dividends only as an incident, because under
the existing industrial system dividends for the owner is the condition
precedent to the continuance of the plant.

Therefore, to summarize: Your object is to me incidental; and my
object is to you incidental.

So objectionable did Taylor find this attempt to express
what was in his mind that, in replying, he reached for the
pepperbox:

My dear Mr. Portenar:

You are absolutely wrong in your description of what my views
regarding management are. Nothing could be further from what
you state my views to be.

It ought to be perfectly evident to any man that no other human
being would devote the whole of his life and spend every cent of
his surplus income for the purpose of producing higher dividends for
a lot of manufacturing companies in which he has not the slightest
interest and of which he has never heard before.

As you know, I retired from money-making business in 1901 and
have never received a cent of pay for any work that I have done in

238 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

the interest of Scientific Management. On the contrary I have de-
voted nearly all of my time and money to furthering the cause of
Scientific Management. This is done entirely vi^ith the idea of get-
ting better wages for the workmen — of developing the workmen
coming under our system so as to make them all higher class men —
to better educate them — to help them to live better lives, and, above
all, to be more happy and contented. This is a worthy object for a
man to devote his life to.

It would seem to me a farce to devote one's whole life and money
merely to secure an increase in dividends for a whole lot of manufac-
turing companies. On the other hand, I realize (as you do not seem
to realize) that it is utterly impossible to get the maximum prosperity
for workmen unless their employers and the owners of the establish-
ments in which they work, cooperate in the most hearty way to bring
about this end. You seem to think that this result can be brought
about by a persistent fight. I am sure it can be only brought about by
friendly, kindly cooperation. Realizing this it becomes a part of
my duty toward the working people (to whose interests I am devoting
my life) to induce manufacturers to come into this scheme of hearty
cooperation. Therefore, in all of my writings and in everything I
say I must emphasize the gain which comes to the manufacturers
quite as much as the gain which comes to workmen, otherwise it
would be impossible to get the manufacturers to cooperate.

You perhaps do not realize that in introducing Scientific Manage-
ment a great and new burden falls upon the management and in
order to make the management take up this new burden they must also
see a profit for themselves as well as for the workmen.

You and I differ absolutely and radically in one thing, which you
do not seem as yet to realize, that is, you fundamentally believe that
war between workmen and their employers is the only road to success
for the workmen, whereas I believe (equally firmly) that the road
to success lies through the warmest kind of friendly cooperation.

Portenar's statement that Taylor could not look at things
from the workman's viewpoint was one that was made to
Taylor by other persons, and it always irritated himj for, as

HIS CAMPAIGN AND ITS MOTIVES 239

we have seen, he all along both as manager and engineer had
deliberately cultivated the art of putting himself in the other
fellow's place. Nevertheless, there was a basis of truth in
the statement, in that he remained curiously unable adequately
to conceive of the workman's class consciousness, though dur-
ing the latter part of his career this consciousness became
stronger and stronger. It may be accounted for first by the
fact that he remained entirely unread as regards the literature
of Socialism and near-Socialism. He would impatiently cast
aside any writing he considered purely theoretical, and doubt-
less all Socialist writing seemed to him to belong to that class.
Futhermore, he was intensely American in the old-fashioned,
individualistic sense, and therefore hardly could understand
the industrial language of continental Europe. However, as
we view it, his inability adequately to conceive of the work-
man's class consciousness was chiefly due to the fact that in
his own dealings with workmen he carried no class conscious-
ness to them and so was confronted by none in them.

Returning to the question of his motives, we may say that
toward the close of his engagement at Bethlehem, he was
seen at his worst, in that he was betrayed into outbursts of
vindictiveness, or what seemed to be such. But this was
merely as the coming up of storm clouds that are quickly dis-
sipated in the prevailing geniality of a summer day. Then
as he was released from first-hand or every-day contact with
the shop and its clashing wills, and time continued to work
its changes in him, his nature steadily mellowed. And with
this mellowing came an intensification of his hatred of " an-
tagonism and strife " and of his desire to substitute for it the
spirit of " friendly cooperation and mutual helpfulness." The
detached spirit of the engineer-economist of course remained
in him, and probably to a much larger extent than he himself
was conscious of. We cannot doubt that his campaign on be-
half of Scientific Management largely was motivated, how-

240 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

ever unconsciously to himself, by his old love of economy
in the abstract. At the same time, it is clear that its motive
became more and more founded in his belief, his deep, sub-
jective conviction, that, as Gerald Stanley Lee has expressed it.
Scientific Management offered a " technical, practical way in
which certain particular men in certain particular places could
afford to love one another."

Now, when he took up his residence at Boxly in the spring
of 1904 the Tabor and Link-Belt developments upon which
he came to rely as demonstrations of his system were under
way, so that all the while he was directing the work at Boxly
he also was directing these developments. Many were the
business executives destined to make the pilgrimage to Boxly
and then to be conducted through the Tabor and Link-Belt
plants, and of these Henry R. Towne apparently was the
first.

It was a very significant thing, this act of Mr. Towne's
in definitely turning to the man in whose general principles
he had so long been interested.

He also was born in Philadelphia j this in 1844, twelve
years before Taylor. In 1861 and 1862 he was a student
at the University of Pennsylvania, but broke off his studies
in the latter year to become a draftsman at the Port Richmond
Iron Works in Philadelphia, which works later were absorbed
by Cramp's shipyards. At the Port Richmond works in the
Civil War days were built the famous monitors Monadnock
and Agamenticus, and Towne had charge of erecting their
engines. Following the war, he became a special student of
engineering, and also took a course in physics at the Sorbonne
in Paris. A little later we find him employed at the Sellers
plant in Philadelphia. Then, in the summer of 1868, he be-
came associated with Linus Yale, who founded a business of
manufacturing locks and other ingenious and highly-wrought
forms of hardware. It was under Towne's administration that

HENRY R. TOWNE

HENRI LOUIS LE CHATELIER

HIS CAMPAIGN AND ITS MOTIVES 241

this business became of international repute j for it was only
a few months after Towne joined him that Yale died, and
thereupon Towne became the president of the concern named
the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company.

Few though they be, these facts about Townees early career
should give us some insight into what lay behind the prepara-
tion of his great paper of 1886 in which he was the first
engineer publicly to proclaim the inseparability of works or
shop management from industrial engineering, to announce
the possibility of a science of management, and to propose the
taking of steps leading to its development.

It will be recalled that for his own plant Towne worked
out a modified form of profit sharing that he called gain
sharing j and in referring to this when testifying in 191 1 be-
fore the Special House Committee, he said:

That was our first move in the direction of what we commonly
talk of now as scientific management, and it dominates the spirit that
I conceive underhes the whole of the present movement. That move-
ment aims to create a community of interest between the employer
and employee under which both shall have the incentive of added
gain or profit or reward for increased intelligence, increased skill, and
increased eflSciency.

And now we read:

The gain-sharing plan was discontinued at our works after a while,
because we began to perceive and study the work which others were
doing in this field, and to realize that there were better methods; and
we then took up those methods and found, as we expected, greater
advantages; and we now have what is commonly known as the Tay-
lor system in full force in two of our largest departments and many
of its principles in large use throughout all of our departments, and
being extended into all of them as rapidly as we can do it intelligently.

It was in the latter part of 1904 that Barth began to in-
vestigate and report on conditions in the Yale & Towne plant

242 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

at Stamford, Connecticut. Mr. Dodge might act on impulse,
but not Mr. Towne. Early in 1905 he and his son went to
Philadelphia, to examine thoroughly what had been done at
the Tabor and Link-Belt plants, and it was not until the spring
of this year that the work of developing the system in one
of the Yale & Towne departments began with Barth in charge.
Becoming along with Dodge one of Taylor's staunchest
champions, Towne early took up Taylor's cause at the A. S. M.
E. — as early, in fact, as the fall of 1905, and this in the very
important way to be described in our next chapter.

CHAPTER VIII

PRESIDENT OF THE A. S. M. E.

UNDER date of September 20, 1905, Towne wrote to
Taylor as follows:

As Chairman of the Nominating Committee of the A.S.M.E.,
the other members of which are Messrs. B. H. Warren,
Stanwood, S. W. Baldwin, and Woodbury, I write for the Com-
mittee to inform you that we desire to place your name at the head of
our list as our nominee for President of the Society for next year, and
to express the hope that you will give your consent.

I am authorized to say further that not only the members of our
Committee, but many other members of the Society believe that its
welfare will be greatly promoted by your election to the presidency,
for which position you are exceptionally qualified by character, train-
ing, experience, and professional achievement. In many respects the
Society is in a flourishing condition, as attested by the steady growth
of its membership and influence; but it has been run for a long time
on established lines which, however sound originally, can undoubtedly
be improved and strengthened to adapt them still better to present
conditions. Development is the law of progress in an organization
like ours as it is in the business world. Your record as an organizer
qualifies you exceptionally, not merely to assist, but to lead, in all
that this implies. The duties of the position are not onerous nor such
as to require frequent attention, but your proximity to the Head-
quarters of the Society here is a factor in your favor and would tend
to facilitate and simplify your work. ,

For all these reasons, and many others which I am prepared to state
if necessary, the Committee unites in urging you to serve your fellow
members in the Society and to promote its welfare by authorizing us
to nominate you as President for next year.

243

244 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

The news in this letter was to Taylor a complete surprise.
In replying several days later, he expressed his " great pride
and gratification," and went on to say:

No engineer could afford to decline this honor if he was able to
serve well, and I should have answered before had it not been for the
fact that I am only too well aware of my inability in certain respects
to properly fill the office. As you know I am a poor public speaker
and have a very indifferent memory for names. And these facts
seemed to me at first an insuperable objection to my acceptance. I
called at your office on Wednesday to ask your advice, and not finding
you in, consulted with Professor Hutton. He was so reassuring that
I have decided not to delay answering any longer. And providing
your committee after having these serious defects brought to their
attention still think it wise to nominate me, I shall be pleased to
accept.

At the annual meeting of the society in December, 1905,
he was duly elected to the presidency for 1906, which was the
year that marked the fiftieth anniversary of his birth. Now
took place an incident which, when he was testifying in 19 14
before the Industrial Relations Commission, he referred to
in the following unconventional language:

Some years ago I was surprised, just as much as would be any of
you gentlemen here, to be told I was nominated to be president of the
Society of Mechanical Engineers, and for about three months, while
the nomination was on, before the election, my chest got larger and
larger, and I had to have somebody back of me to hold up my head
to keep me from falling over backward. Four days after the election
I was given a dinner. My head and chest suddenly contracted when
I was told I had been elected because the society needed reorganizing,
and it was believed that I was the man to do it. I had a big year's
duty ahead of me.

In Towne's letter a strong intimation was given of what
would be expected of him. Nevertheless, he had no means

PRESIDENT OF THE A. S. M. E. 245

of knowing the extent to which he had been made the object
of a conspiracy until he attended that dinner after he had
been irrevocably elected. The chief conspirators besides
Towne were that other past president of the society, James M.
Dodge, and the distinguished engineer who was president for
1905, John R, Freeman. The action of these progressive men
in moving to have the society's management reorganized was
precipitated at this time by the fact that early in 1907 the
society was to abandon the made-over residence building in
West 31st Street, New York, which it had occupied since 1890,
and establish its headquarters in the splendid new building in
West 39th Street provided for it and its sister engineering
societies through the generosity of Andrew Carnegie. In
1906 the membership of the A. S. M. E. had reached about
3,000, and it was naturally felt that its removal to its com-
modious and in every way more advantageous new quarters
should mark a new era in its affairs.

Though it was something of a shock to Taylor to discover
the extent to which practical considerations had entered into
his election, he accepted it as a good joke on himself, even
while he was sobered by considerations of the new responsi-
bility. He could not take up anything without putting into
it his very best. And it is to be understood that, at fifty, he
was a man who was getting tired, who was called on at in-
creasing intervals to fight a sense of fatigue.

Now, as far back as 1903, when he was living at Red Gate,
Taylor had come in contact with Morris Llewellyn Cooke,
who, on account of the versatility of his talents, the catholicity
of his interests and sympathies, his capacity for missionary
zeal, and the range of his acquaintance with men and cities,
was destined to play a most important part in extending the
field of Scientific Management and broadening its scope. A
deeply religious man in the universal sense. And as a natural
outcome of his religious nature, an aggressively democratic

246 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

man, or a sort of a modern knight errant j ever ready he to ]
ride full tilt against the brute power of money, arrogance of
position, and any form of special privilege. Upon his grad-
uation from the engineering school of Lehigh University in
1895, he worked for a year, first as a machinist's apprentice
and then as a journeyman mechanic. Then he was suc-
cessively a partner in a printing business, a salesman for a
lithographing house, and assistant general manager for the
Booklovers Library, which latter position he held when in
1903 he met Taylor.

So impressed was Taylor with what Cooke did after this
in applying the principles of Scientific Management to print-
ing and publishing and to oflice practice that when, in 1906,
it fell to him to reorganize the A. S. M. E., he, at his own per-
sonal expense, employed Cooke to help him. Cooke's work
at the A. S. M. E. lasted a few months after Taylor's pres-
idential term had closed, or about sixteen months in all. In
the main it consisted of analyzing the functions of the society,
and classifying, standardizing, symbolizing, and indexing
them. Among other things, the cost of distributing the an-
nual volume containing the society's transactions was just
about cut in half. All the printing and publishing was in-
vestigated, and large savings effected through changes in
methods and in contracts. One of the principal reforms in
this connection was the abolition of the old method of print-
ing separately the papers accepted from members and mailing
them just prior to each meeting. In place of this a monthly
journal of Proceedings was founded, and for this journal the
second-class mail privilege was obtained.

Another thing largely in the nature of an innovation which
Taylor brought about had to do with the secretaryship, a paid
position the occupant of which is, at least in theory, the society's
continuing head. Usually this office had been filled by a man
more representative of the college professors among the mem-

PRESIDENT OF THE A. S. M. E. 247

bers than of the practicing engineers. Now there was installed
in the office an engineer of high standing in practical workj
namely, Calvin W. Rice, formerly of the staff of the General
Electric Company.

Not by any means did Taylor's work in directing the re-
organization of the society's management cease with the close
of his term as president. Following his retirement from the
presidency, he became the chairman of a *' committee on
standardization " formed to carry this work on and the labors
of which continued up to the spring of 19 10.

Now, it was Taylor's object, and in this he had the support
of the other members of the committee, to place the adminis-
tration on a strictly business basis. In effecting its object,
the committee increased the expenses to a point considerably
in excess of the expenses of similar societies such as those of
the mining, civil, and electrical engineers. This may seem
strange J but the explanation is found in a letter written by
Taylor in November, 1909, to Secretary Rice:

I have just received the very interesting comparative analysis of the
affairs of our society with those of other societies. I feel, however,
that the mere financial statistics, unaccompanied with other facts, are
very apt to be misleading. For example, our office expenses are higher
than those of any of the other societies. The reason for this, however,
is that in our society a special endeavor is made to entirely free the
higher officers from routine work and judgment of all kinds, so that
they can devote their energies to progress. This necessarily runs up
office expenses. In at least one of the other societies a vast amount
of the routine work is done by members of the committees, who donate
their time, and in many cases pay quite large personal expenses, in
doing the routine work of their societies. In one case, one member
of a committee wrote, as I remember it, 1, 200 letters in a year for
the society.

Now, this appears to me to be little short of an outrage on indi-
vidual members of the society. An engineering society is not a

248 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

charitable institution, and it is an outrage in my judgment to ask
any one of its members to give the vast amount of time and trouble
required to write 1,200 letters in the interest of the society. This
should be done by men who are paid for this purpose, and is done,
I believe, to a larger extent by the employees of our society than it
is in some of the others. To my mind, if the very valuable report of
the Finance Committee is published, it should be accompanied by some
statements of this kind.

In reply to this, Rice wrote under date of December i:

Your comments on the Finance Committee's report are already so
obvious to many in the Council and to the Chairman of the Finance
Committee, who made the report, that he will in open meeting make
the same comments which you make, and in his judgment it is therefore
unnecessary to go into a written explanation. This comparison is
not to be published. For private use only. It is further our opinion
that the whole matter will drop without comment.

However, this proved not to be the case. Not only was
there criticism, but in some quarters it took the form
of sneers at all that Taylor had done for the society j so
that in July, 19 10, Taylor was stirred to write Rice a letter
in which he said among other things:

Now, as far as the work of our committee is concerned, I believe
that any examination by experts will make the fact clear that this
organization has not only been effective, but also economical, and
personally I should be entirely pleased to have all the work that we
have done gone over by any competent committee.

As I have several times told you, I think that a thorough time study
should be made of the duties of each of the employees of our Society,
and this will show whether further condensation is possible or not.
No such time study was made by our committee, because the methods
of administration were being formed, and until a reasonably perma-
nent organization has been reached, the time study of positions would
hardly be advisable.

PRESIDENT OF THE A. S. M. E. 249

As you know, I lay no claim to infallibility, and I think it likely
that a committee would be able to improve, at least in certain details,
our work of organization. I can assure you, however, that in this
respect the Society is not far behind the times. Naturally any com-
mittee appointed to investigate present methods and suggest improve-
ments should be thoroughly informed as to the principal objects which
our " Committee on Standardization " had in view while doing their
work.

What Taylor did was subjected to criticism on the ground
that, as one man expressed it, the organization included a
" magnificent equipment suitable for a society of ten thousand
members," and it was only reasonable to expect that some
years must elapse before the membership could approxi-
mate that figure. However, no investigating committee was
appointed J and Mr. Rice pursued the policy of making
the administration concerned not so much with cutting the
equipment down as with getting the society to grow up to it.
And the fact is that whereas the membership in 19 10 was
3,832, it reached 6,931 in 1915, and 13,251 in 1920.

The evidence is that, in the main, the criticism of Taylor's
work was due to dislike and fear of him personally and to a
desire to discredit the industrial movement of which he was the
head. At the A. S. M. E., as elsewhere, his personality was
likely to inspire intense feeling either of attraction or repulsion.
Many there were who were attracted. The writer one day
stood looking over the photographs of the past presidents
hung upon the wall of one of the society's rooms. Presently
he was joined by an elderly gentleman of benevolent mien.
He and the writer were entire strangers to each other j but,
pointing to the photograph of Frederick Taylor, the elderly
gentleman exclaimed: "Ah, there was the noblest Roman of
them all! " Many the tales they tell at the A. S. M. E. of
the prowess of this noble Roman j of the hush that fell when
he arose to speak, of the victories he appeared to gain before

250 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

he spoke a word. On the other hand, the insouciance with
which he often carried himself here again was found trying.
And surely it sometimes was hard to fathom him. In a
crowded room at the A. S. M. E. he picked out a gentleman
to give him an unmerciful dressing down. The bystanders
were amazed, the victim stunned. What had the gentleman
done? At length it appeared that the mischievous Mr. Tay-
lor considered he had been remiss in putting in an appearance
to play golf. He often was disliked because his dominating
personality inspired fear. There were grave fears that he
would Taylorize the whole society. He was disliked, too,
because of the intensity of the devotion he inspired. It was
rather trying, the way that " Philadelphia crowd " came on
to New York to fight for their chief. Remarked a man one
day to one of these disciples : " Fred Taylor may be God
Almighty all right j but the only resemblance I can see is
that he has in you fellows such damn poor representatives here
on earth."

Then there were the professors who, without disrespect
to their honorable body as a whole, may be classified as of
the " hard-shell " type. Between them and Fred Taylor
there always was a latent antagonism j evidently they found
it downright exasperating that this very practical man should
invoke the sacred name of science in connection with his sys-
tem of management. And there also were the little engineers
who could see nothing in industry back of its turning wheels,
who could see nothing human in industry at allj and anyway,
if there was, it was none of their business. All this, we sup-
pose, was perfectly innocent, if bespeaking contraction of the
mind and stricture of the heart. Not quite so innocent was
the fact that in the society were men who, as representatives
of or in deference to great corporations, apparently felt it was
their duty to choke off any such movement as that headed
by Taylor. One may be free from the delusion that there

PRESIDENT OF THE A. S. M. E. 251

is anything necessarily sinister in size, and yet be forced to
realize that money heaped up and aggregated does have a
tendency to dehumanize those connected with it. To the men
who represent large aggregations of capital, law is only too
likely to assume the aspect of something you hire lawyers to
bedevil J certainly it is difficult to picture them in the act of
conceiving that a great corporation should voluntarily submit
itself to ethical law, or the law of right and just relations
among human beings. A dream too dangerous! Always
dangerous, you know, to try to mix such incompatibles as
ethics and economics!

For a long time, apparently, only a comparatively few
members of the A. S. M. E. paid any attention to the Taylor
movement. But as it made headway, particularly after Tay-
lor's presidential term and the presentation of his metal-cut-
ting paper, then began the counter-movement and the efforts
to discredit what Taylor had done and was doing for the
society. Not an open movement. Just a quiet and decent
choking off, and especially a subtle discouragement of papers
on the subject of management. If the society limited its dis-
cussions to such safe and sane subjects as that of gas engines,
peace would reign and all would be well.^

In 1906, the regular meeting of the society was held in
May in Chattanooga, Tennessee j and it fell to Taylor, as
president, to respond to the address of welcome made by
Chattanooga's mayor. Trying to make a conventional re-
sponse, he was conventional with a vengeance. There were

^ That this discouragement of management papers was effective appears
from the fact that whereas the New York Public Library's list of references
on Scientific Managemeni shows that in the years 1906 to 191 1 inclusive 391
articles on management were published in the regular engineering magazines,
only seven papers on management were presented in this period before the A. S.
M. E. How times have changed, now that the years of controversy have
passed, will be seen when it is stated that in 1920 the A. S. M. E. organized
a Management Division, and that two years later the membership of this
division (1,740) exceeded that of any other of the society's professional
divisions.

252 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

the references to "your beautiful country," and to the fact
that " in engineering there is no east or west, no north or
south." Hardly could a hack politician have been more
platitudinous. Which illustrates the fact that as soon as he
tried to follow other people's ways, his inspiration deserted
him. Therefore he was well advised by his good genius
when he decided not to try to deliver anything in the way
of a conventional presidential address at the society's annual
meeting in December, but make it the occasion for telling
about his metal-cutting experiments.

If any piece of writing was for him a hard and disagree-
able task, the preparation of such a paper as he now projected
would not have been easy for anyone. Not, at all events,
for anyone who had his ideals of writing. Says Kempton
Taylor in speaking of his father:

Simph'city of expression was a cardinal point with him. He would
revise, cut down, and piece together his manuscripts with the single
aim of making his meaning clearer. He always was at great pains
to impress on my brother and me the vanity of " fine writing." Once
he pointed to the last paragraph of his paper on " A Piece-Rate Sys-
tem," and said: "I used to think a lot of fine writing myself, but
this is the only specimen of my early efforts in that line which found
its way into print, and I am quite ashamed of it."

That his dislike of " fine writing " came to be austere in-
deed, will appear when the paragraph referred to is quoted:

The utmost effect of any system, whether of management, social
combination, or legislation, can be but to raise a small ripple or wave
of prosperity above the surrounding level, and the greatest hope of the
writer is that, here and there, a few workmen, with their employers,
may be helped, through this system, toward the crest of the wave.

He began the preparation of his metal-cutting paper in
July, and worked on it practically continuously right up to
the time of the meeting in December.

PRESIDENT OF THE A. S. M. E. 253

There had been, of course, a mass of records to overhaul
and a mass of data to check up, and in this work he had to
lean heavily upon the assistance of Barth. It would appear,
in fact, that Barth has not received in this connection the
credit to which he is entitled. Practically all of the mathe-
matical formulae in Taylor's paper were worked up by Barth,
and many of the standard tools there pictured and described
represented Earth's personal ingenuity j if they became known
as Taylor tools, they were so only in the sense that Taylor
had inspired and directed the general course of the experi-
ments of which they were the outcome.'^

Of course, the man who is the soul of a movement comes
pretty nearly being the movement, and the soul of the whole
Scientific Management movement Taylor was. But in all his
public utterances the only credit he ever took to himself
personally was for his ability to " hold on tight with his teeth."
The fact was that he believed that the movement he started
would be more effective as it appeared to be the work of a
group, and in his metal-cutting paper particularly he wished
to show what could be done through cooperation. With this
in mind, it is easy to see how it came about that, despite his
exceptional generosity in recognizing what others had done,
he in his metal-cutting paper simply gave Barth credit for
being a better mathematician than any of the others in his
group. Just as he subordinated his own personality to the
good of the whole movement, so he avoided singling Barth
out for much special mention. However, he himself came to
recognize that, in view of the fact that Barth's contribution
in the matter of the technic of the machine shop was far
greater than that of any other man, this worked out to do
Barth not a little injustice.

^ Once Barth remarked to Taylor : " You have received credit for a lot of
thing-s you didn't do; but, on the other hand, you have been blamed, for
many things you didn't do, and I should say that the account was about even."
"When I told him this," says Barth, "he smiled."

254 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Prior to the preparation of his metal-cutting paper, he had
relied for assistance in writing upon public stenographers j
but now, in July, 1 906, he " borrowed " a young woman,
Miss Ella P. Stiles, from the office in Boston of his friend,
Sanford Thompson. He worked under pressure during these
months, but every afternoon about 4 o'clock he went out to
play golf, and he insisted that Miss Stiles then take recreation
also. Frequently a carriage was placed at her disposal.
Thinking they were more in accord with a scientific treatise, she
at the beginning would occasionally substitute words of Latin
origin for his shorter and blunter terms. He gently pointed
out his reasons for preferring these latter terms, but always
was open to suggestions, and promptly adopted those he con-
sidered good. The title of his paper gave him much bother.
Some one suggested " The Art of Cutting Metals." Immedi-
ately he said that it would have to be " On the Art of Cutting
Metals." When his paper was read, Miss Stiles was present
upon his special invitation j and when he introduced her to his
friends in that big gathering of engineers, he embarrassed her
by invariably adding: " Without this young lady's help my
paper never could have been written."

Back of the platform from which he spoke was a mammoth
slide rule. When he wrote Towne that he was a " poor public
speaker," he told what at this time was the fact. It was plain
to all who saw him on the platform that he was no ordinary
man, but his speech was a rather monotonous repetition of
words from a manuscript. Naturally he read only a part of
his paper. As a whole, it was designed for the study, not for
the platform. It amounted to nearly 100,000 words, a
length enforced by the ramifications of his subject and to
his desire to be comprehensive and thorough. Great was his
labor to make it easy reading throughout. When, for ex-
ample, we come to the section dealing with the "Theory of
Hardening Steel," we find him proceeding to translate all

PRESIDENT OF THE A. S. M. E. 255

the " special technical expressions " used by previous writers
on this subject.

These special technical expressions [he said] make it difficult for
even an educated engineer to clearly understand their articles without
considerable study. The present paper is intended not only for engi-
neers familiar with the subject, but more especially for shop super-
intendents, managers and foremen, many of whom have but small fa-
miliarity with the scientific or metallurgical side of the problem.^

As his paper was finally shaped by him and published by
the A. S. M. E., we find an introductory section of about
10,000 words giving a broad survey of the whole subject and
designed to lend to it all the " human interest " possible.
Then a table of technical terms indicating where, in the text
or in the folders at the back, these terms are defined. Fol-
lowing this a " Table of Contents " giving the title of each
section or chapter, together with a thorough synopsis of its
contents. All diagrams are, with a few exceptions, relegated

^ At the same time, it is to be pointed out that, as Earth tells us, Taylor
" did not expect or intend that what he wrote should be so complete an
exposition of the matter that it would be of substantial and immediate use to
the practicing shop engineer or manager." His grand object was to exploit
the scientific method in general, and to show in particular what could be
done when people dropped their individual ways and worked together in a
truly cooperative spirit. Apart from this he aimed to interest practical shop
people in scientific metal-cutting only to an extent that would induce them to
employ expert assistance, presumably Earth's; and there is no doubt that entering
into this was his belief, not only that shop people were likely to make a botch
of it if they attempted it alone, but also that the finer details of what had been
developed by the experiments he had inspired and fathered should be retained by
Earth, at least for the time being, as a " stock in trade " that would enable Earth
to receive a due reward for his devoted labors. Later on Taylor came to see that,
for many reasons, his paper needed to be revised or to be supplemented by an-
other paper, and in 1 9 1 1 he began to urge upon Earth that he undertake this
work. As it turned out, Earth was unable to take it up until after Taylor's
death in 191 5; and, as then prepared, his supplement was published in twelve
successive issues of Industrial Management, beginning in September, 1919. In
this paper Earth's aim was to supply what had been lacking in the previous paper
to make it a practical engineering one in distinction to a scientific treatise, and
among other things he showed just how his slide rules are made and used.

256 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

to the folder section at the back. In general, Taylor's ar-
rangement of his paper shows the deep study he gave to the
problem of interesting the many and the few at the same time.
As published by the A. S. M. E., On the Art of Cutting
Metals contains the discussion of the paper j this discussion
having as its participants such good friends of Taylor's as
Towne, Dodge, Gantt, Lewis, and Hathaway, his French
admirers Le Chatelier and Codron, and various English en-
gineers. It was here that Le Chatelier paid the high tribute
beginning:

The near future will show us the service which has been rendered
to the mechanical arts by this generous publication of researches pur-
sued with such uncommon perseverance. But even now we can ad-
mire without reserve the scientific method which has controlled this
whole work. It is an example unique in the history of the mechanic
arts. We have all admired the researches of Sir Lothian Bell on blast
furnaces and those of Sir William Siemens on the regenerative
furnace; but notwithstanding the high scientific value of the work of
these two great engineers, on reading their papers neither of them
leaves an impression on the mind which can be compared with that of
Mr. Taylor's paper. It is a model which every young engineer will
have to study.

The English engineers who discussed the paper expressed
their admiration with reservations. In their comments, in-
deed, we find echoes of the chagrin caused in England by the
fact that it had been left to an American to bring about in the
metal-cutting field an advance greater, as Towne expressed it,
" than during the previous ages since the days of Tubal Cain."
Two of the Englishmen who, at Taylor's invitation, com-
mented at length on his paper, were Daniel Adamson, of
Joseph Adamson & Company, of Hyde, and Dr. J. T. Nic-
olson, professor of engineering in Manchester's Municipal
School of Technology. The reason Taylor sent these

PRESIDENT OF THE A. S. M. E. 257

gentlemen advance sheets of his paper was that they had
served on the committee which conducted the Manchester
metal-cutting experiments of 1902 and 1903. It is curious
that, whereas in France there was immediate appreciation of
Taylor's method of experimenting with only one variable at a
time, Adamson and Nicholson devoted a large part of their
criticism of Taylor's paper to defending as correct the Man-
chester method of determining the joint effect of several
variables. These gentlemen took it in bad grace that
Taylor should have ventured to question the scientific nature
of their experiments. His reply we must regard as a model
of sportsmanship, even for such good sportsmen as English-
men generally or usually are:

In reading the criticisms of both Messrs. Adamson and Nicolson,
the impression is given that in writing the paper we have spoken con-
temptuously, or at least in a slighting way, of the work which they
have done. If, in writing our paper, I have given this impression, I
wish most sincerely to apologize. I have the highest respect for the
work of both of these gentlemen, and am sure that with their special
ability and training they would have accomplished much more in the
same space of time than we have done. We have clearly stated, in
writing the paper, that we worked for fourteen years with false and
unscientific standards, and I have not the slightest doubt that the
gentlemen in charge of the Manchester experiments, and particularly
Messrs. Nicolson and Adamson, would have adopted thoroughly sci-
entific methods in a much shorter time than this. It must be remem-
bered that the Manchester experiments extended only over a period
of less than a year, and it is not to be expected that, even with the
special ability of this committee, they should have hit upon thoroughly
scientific methods in so short a time. It was my sincere endeavor in
writing the paper to make my criticism of the work of other experi-
menters strictly impersonal. Our only object of offering criticism
being that of inducing any future experimenters in this field to adopt
the very best, the most modern, and the most scientific methods.

258 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Always the question arises, to what end? Certainly he had
no doubts as to the true end of such an art as that of cutting
metals. Commenting on the discussion of his paper, he said:

I must again repeat that I feel quite sure that the real benefit will
be realized from these laws only when they are used for the purpose
for which the investigation was originally started, and for which it
was carried out through so many years, namely, that of enabling the
management of a shop to assign a daily task in advance to each ma-
chinist.

Immediately translated into French, German, and Russian,
On the Art of Cutting Metals brought its author lavish com-
mendation here and abroad from those best acquainted with
its subject. In this country the technical and trade press
hailed it as " the most remarkable presidential address ever
delivered before an American engineering society " and " the
most important contribution ever made to engineering litera-
ture," while in London it was said that " never in the history
of any institution has a more important paper been submitted."
Writing to the editor of the American journal. Machinery y
Taylor said:

We are all of us very much surprised and pleased at the reception
which the paper has received. In one way, however, we feel a certain
chagrin that the art of cutting metals, which after all constitutes
but a comparatively small part of our system of management, should
receive so much more attention than the papers we have written upon
the broader and much more important subject of shop management.
The cutting of metals, however, is a concrete and perfectly clear sub-
ject, while most people as yet do not look upon management as in any
sense an art, and in fact all fail to appreciate that there is much, if
any, difference between one type of management and another.

Nevertheless, the ultimate outcome was such as fitted in
with his larger purpose, inasmuch as the fame of his metal-

PRESIDENT OF THE A. S. M. E. 259

cutting paper had the retroactive effect of drawing increased
attention to Shop Management. For example, it was the fa-
vorable reception that his German translation of On the Art
of Cutting Metals met with that encouraged Professor A. O.
Wallichs, of the Royal Polytechnic School of Aix-la-Chapelle,
to render Sho-p Management into German also, and it was be-
cause of his admiration for On the Art of Cutting Metals that
Henri Le Chatelier became interested in Shop Management.

CHAPTER IX

ON COLLEGES AND EDUCATION

IN October, 1906, there was a large gathering of distin-
guished American and foreign engineers at the University
of Pennsylvania to participate in the dedication of that
university's new million-dollar engineering building. Among
the thirteen engineers awarded the honorary degree of Sc.D.
was Taylor, and because he was then the president of the A. S.
M. E., it fell to him to deliver the leading address. Here
also being advised by his good genius that he could not do the
conventional thing gracefully, he took advantage of the occa-
sion to make a vigorous presentation of some of the positive
views he had come to hold on education in general and engin-
eering education in particular.

Before proceeding with the story of his work in promoting
Scientific Management, we must deal with these views of his.
They will be found not only interesting in themselves, but
of a piece with his whole industrial philosophy.

He entitled his University of Pennsylvania address " A
Comparison of University and Industrial Methods and Dis-
cipline 5 Being a Protest against the Excesses of the Elective
System and Loose University Discipline, and a Plea for
Bringing Students Early into Close Contact with Men
Working for Their Living." It was a fairly radical attack
on existing educational methods. But he prefaced it with
these words:

I despise the pessimist who sees nothing but the defects and blunders
of mankind, and I despise the scold, whose pleasure it is to complain
of all things as they are.

260

ON COLLEGES AND EDUCATION 261

And he continued:

Let me say at the start that, without question, our college graduates
as a class represent the finest body of men in the community. And as
to the value of an engineering course for men in our profession, it
has been shown through carefully gathered statistics that within a few
years after graduation the college educated engineer far outstrips in
position and salary his average competitor who comes up from the
ranks.

It was not a congenial task for him to find fault. Never-
theless, something might be gained by his pointing to this
common defect which many of their friends had found in
young college men:

For a period of from six months to two years after graduation they
are, generally speaking, discontented and unhappy. They are apt to
look upon their employers as unappreciative, unjust, and tyrannical,
and it is frequently only after changing employers once or twice
and finding the same lack of appreciation in all of them, that they
finally start upon their real careers of usefulness.

So frequently was this the case that many employers had
come to make it a rule never to employ a college boy who had
not been out for more than two years. How could this situa-
tion be explained?

To a certain extent [said Taylor] this is unquestionably due to the
sudden and radical change from years spent as boys almost solely in
absorbing and assimilating knowledge for their own benefit to their
new occupation of giving out and using what they have for the
benefit of others. To a degree it is the sponge objecting to the pres-
sure of the hand which uses it. To a greater degree, however, I be-
lieve the trouble to be due to the lack of discipline and to the lack
of direct, earnest, and logical purpose which accompanies, to a large
extent, modern university life.

During the four years that these young men are at college they are

262 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

under less discipline, and are given a greater liberty than they have
ever had before or will ever have again.

As to college discipline, it cannot be a good training for after life
for a young man deliberately to be told by the university authorities
that he can flagrantly neglect his studies sixty times in one term be-
fore any attention will be paid to it; while if, in business, the same
young man would be discharged for being absent two or three times
without permission.

As to the freedom offered by the modern university system, it is
not true that boys from eighteen to twenty years old have the knowl-
edge and experience necessary to select a logical and well-rounded
course of studies, and even if they had this wisdom, the temptation
to choose those studies which come easiest is so strong that it would
be unwise to throw upon them so great a responsibility. Nor does it
appear wise to leave each student free to study as little or as much as
may suit him, at times doing practically no work for days, and at
other times greatly overworking, with no restraint or direction ex-
cept the round-up which comes twice a year with examinations. At
the least, it must be said that in commercial or industrial life this un-
directed liberty will never again be allowed them.

Though Taylor did not deal with this in his address, his
son Kempton tells us that he favored a strict supervision of
undergraduates, not only in the matter of their studies, but
also in connection with their personal habits. He was im-
pressed with the frequency of drunkenness and other dis-
orderly and immoral conduct among them. He would have
swept away their whole club system, and for the supervision
of their habits he advocated the employment of a corps of
popular young men. These supervisors would report all cases
of disorderly or immoral conduct, and those students who
persisted in such conduct after being warned would be cast out.
The argument that this was " rank espionage " made no im-
pression on him. He believed there was no support in the
facts for the theory that young men at college are old enough
to know how to take care of themselves. He held that univer-

ON COLLEGES AND EDUCATION 263

sides and colleges are responsible for the morals of their
undergraduates, and he advocated for all these institutions
such discipline as was maintained at West Point and Annap-
olis. Throughout his life he continued to speak admiringly
of the discipline he had found at Exeter, and he was positive
that the first university which adopted such discipline would
leap to the front.

Returning to his University of Pennsylvania address, we
read further:

During the past thirty years two radical changes have occurred
in educational methods. The kindergarten and its accompanying
ideas has come for the children, and for the young men has come the
change from the college, with its one or two courses carefully selected
and rigidly prescribed by the faculty, to the university with as many
diflFerent courses as there are young men, and in which, under the
elective system, each student is given the choice of all his studies.

In the main he approved of both the kindergarten idea
and the university idea. He protested only against the false
ideas and abuses that had become associated with them.

Somehow [he said] the average kindergarten child gets a firm con-
viction that it is the duty of the teacher to make things interesting and
amusing, and from this follows soon the notion that if he does not
like his studies and fails to learn much, it is largely the teacher's
fault. Now, whatever views the parents or the teachers should hold
upon the duties of teachers, there is no doubt that the boys should
have firmly in their heads the good old-fashioned idea that it is their
duty to learn, and not that it is the duty of the teacher to teach them.

Along with the kindergarten plan of interesting and amusing chil-
dren, the idea has taken firm hold in a large portion of the educational
world that the child and young man should be free to develop natu-
rally, like a beautiful plant or flower. This may again be an excel-
lent view for the older person to hold, but it is a distinctly bad one
for the young man to act upon. He promptly translates the idea of

264 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

developing naturally into wishing to do only, or mainly, those things
which he likes or which come easy to him.

He charged that under the elective system the courses
chosen by fully one half of the students were " loose, flabby,
and purposeless." And this was his remedial suggestion :

Why cannot all of the good features of the elective system be better
attained by permitting each young man to choose in general the ob-
ject or purpose for which he wishes to educate himself, and then
leave the entire course of studies to the one or more professors in the
faculty who are especially fitted to plan a complete and logical course
in the chosen field? Let the young man say where he wishes to go,
and let the faculty tell him the road he is to travel to get there.

He believed that the true object of education was that of
" training boys to be successful men." Successful " in the
broadest sense, not merely successful money getters. Success-
ful, first, in developing their own character, and, second, in
doing their full share of the world's work." And he laid
down this doctrine:

Of all the habits and principles which make for success in a young
man, the most useful is the determination to do and do right all those
things which come his way each day, whether they are agreeable or
disagreeable; and the ability to do this is best acquired through long
practice in doggedly doing along with that which is agreeable a lot
of things which are tiresome and monotonous.

But there must be a motive power back of this. And the
great motive power of most successful men was " singleness
and earnestness of purpose."

It is a notable fact [he continued] that the moment a young man
becomes animated with such a purpose, that moment he ceases to be-
lieve in the elective system, and in the loose college discipline.

In all earnest enterprises which the students themselves manage,
they throw the elective system to the winds, and adopt methods and a

ON COLLEGES AND EDUCATION 265

discipline quite as rigid as those prevailing in the commercial and
industrial world.

The boy who joins the football squad is given no sixty cuts a
season, nor is he allowed to choose what he will do. He does just
wliat someone else tells him to do, and does it at the time and in the
manner he is told, and one or two lapses from training rules are suf-
ficient cause for expulsion from the team or the crew.

I say in all seriousness that were it not for a certain trickiness and
a low professional spirit which has come to be a part of the game, I
should look upon football and the training received in athletics as one
of the most useful elements in a college course, for two reasons: first,
because in it they are actuated by a truly serious purpose; and, second,
because they are given, not the elective idea of doing what they want
to, but cooperation, and cooperation of the same general character
which they will be called upon to practice in after life.

Is not the greatest problem in university life, then, how to animate
the students with an earnest, logical purpose?

And here Taylor made the suggestion that the " nature of
the great problem they must face after graduating " must
early be brought home to the students.

Nothing [he said] but contact with work and actual competition
with men struggling for a living will teach them this. It cannot be
theorized over or lectured upon, or taught in the school work-shop or
laboratory.

I look upon this actual work and competition with men working
for a living as of such great value in developing earnestness of purpose
that it would seem to me time well spent for each student, say, at the
end of the freshman year, to be handed over by the university for a
period of six months to some commercial, engineering, or manufac-
turing establishment.

Printed in pamphlet form, Taylor's address attracted at-
tention. In November, 1907, Professor Ira N. Hollls, of
Harvard University's Division of Engineering, wrote to him:
" Your ideas on the subject of education seem to me well

266 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

worth spreading, and I am looking for missionaries to the
cause here at Harvard. Would you be willing to serve on the
Visiting Committee for Engineering, at this University? "

Please let me assure you [Taylor replied] that I appreciate most
highly the fact that you have thought of me in this connection, and
my hesitation in accepting such a position does not imply any doubt
as to the possibilities for usefulness of a committee such as you spoke
of. You are aware, however, that I strongly disapprove of the unre-
stricted liberty and lack of discipline, and also of the great freedom
given to the students under the elective system which now prevails
in the undergraduate department at Harvard, and I do not wish to
become a member of a committee in which there is a likelihood that
I should be actively opposing the general ideas back of the system now
existing at Harvard. I fully recognize the value in many cases of a
minority in opposition, but my whole interests and ambition lie in
the direction of constructive work, not in that of opposition.

It was represented by Professor Hollis that at Harvard
there was at that time no elective system as applied to the
engineering courses, and that in connection with most of his
ideas on education, Taylor would find himself part of a
sturdy minority. In the latter part of November, 1907, Tay-
lor was the guest of Professor and Mrs. Hollis in Cambridge,
and in the course of this visit had a discussion with Charles W.
Eliot, then the president of Harvard. True, the respective
outlooks upon life of these two men were largely antithetical,
but Taylor later wrote that he had a " most interesting inter-
view with Mr. Eliot," and added: "After explaining our
scheme of management to him, he finally said that he believed
that the main difference between his views and mine lay in the
use which we attached to words."

Though Taylor was persuaded to serve on the Visiting Com-
mittee for Engineering, he never felt at home in this position.
Writing in April, 1908, to the secretary of the Harvard
Engineering Society of New York, he said: .

ON COLLEGES AND EDUCATION 267

The universal opinion, both with the faculty and the Board of
Governors at Harvard, seems to be that the young men need more of
theory, whereas my conviction is that their greatest need is a mixture,
with the amount of mental training which they get there, of practical
work and early contact with actual engineering conditions. As the
two views are entirely irreconcilable, I feel like a " butter-in " and
highly out of place.

While he had many friends at Harvard whom he highly
esteemed, he was out of sympathy with the prevailing Har-
vard notion of culture. In 19 10, when writing to Richard C.
Maclaurin, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology, he said: "The assumption of a monopoly of culture
on the part of the classically-educated man has been a matter
of mixed annoyance and amusement to me for many years."

The management, or business administration, of Harvard
also met with his disapprobation. Writing in 19 10 to Henry
Thompson, one of the trustees of Princeton, he said:

As a member of the Visiting Committee at Harvard University, I
have been very greatly impressed with the fact that an institution of
such national importance as Harvard should be managed on lines
which are almost a century old, and that it should be, in respect to its
management, almost a disgrace to those who are connected with it.

He added that he had reason to believe that Princeton was,
as regards its management, no better off than Harvard. The
fact is that, by 19 10, he had come to gain, through his friend
Morris L. Cooke, a large insight into the administration of
universities and colleges in general.

In March, 1909, Henry S. Pritchett, president of the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, wrote
to Taylor saying that " nobody has ever made an economic
study of education in this country so far as the administration
of educational work is concerned," and asking him to recom-
mend a man who could make such a study. Taylor named

268 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Cooke, and the outcome was Cooke's report, Academic and
Industrial Efficiency, published in 1910 as the Carnegie
Foundation's " Bulletin Number Five," Besides making
recommendations in connection with the strictly financial and
business relations of the university, Cooke applied many of
the principles of Scientific Management to the university's cen-
tral educational system. His report, which excited not a
little wrath in conservative professorial circles, had the full
sympathy of Taylor.

That Taylor advocated for the officials of colleges and
universities the same general course he advocated for the
managers of industrial plants, appears in a letter he wrote in
February, 19 10, to Miss Laura D. Gill, of Boston, one of
several members of a " Woman's College Committee " who
had visited him at Boxly, to hear him expound Scientific
Management :

I think that functional management should supersede both the com-
mittee organization by which some of our universities are managed,
and the "benevolent tyrant" who runs the rest of them; and an
understanding of the essential difference between scientific man-
agement and management of the old type should enable question after
question to be decided as the result of scientific investigation, and in
accordance with certain general principles, instead of being settled
according to the individual judgment of some one or more people
whose qualifications for deciding these particular questions have been
the result of more or less casual observation or reading.

I hope that at least I have succeeded in convincing you that before
starting to reorganize a university, or any branch of a university, that
you should distinctly have in mind some one general type of organiza-
tion, the principles of which are to govern in every move which is
made toward a reorganization.

In February, 1908, he spoke before the Harvard Engi-
neering Society of New York. In this address he quoted these
words from a letter he just had received: " I really mean it

ON COLLEGES AND EDUCATION 269

when I say that I have ceased to hire any more young college
graduates until they have been ^ dehorned ' by some other em-
ployer." And he went on again to advocate that every student
should be " handed over, at the end of his freshman or sopho-
more year, for a period of from six months to a year, to some
commercial or manufacturing establishment."

Though some of the professors at Stevens Institute became
warm supporters of this idea of Taylor's, it was one that failed
to commend itself to Dr. Alexander C. Humphries, the pres-
ident. In attempting to convince Dr. Humphries, Taylor
wrote him in March, 1 908 :

I have just spent a month at the Hotel Bon Air, in Augusta,
Georgia. This hotel holds about 400 guests, and among these men
were many of the prominent and successful manufacturers of the
country, who have built up their own business. I took occasion to talk
with one after another of these men on the subject of technical edu-
cation. I particularly wanted their opinion as to the value of technical
graduates. I think that without a single exception these men stated
that no technical graduate was at the head of any of their works or
even a very large manufacturing department, who had not himself
worked as a foreman. They almost all spoke very favorably of
technical graduates, but they did not look upon the average technical
graduate as in any way fitted to be at the head of a business, the chief
reason being that they were, as they said, too theoretical. . . .

This strengthens my own personal observation and contention,
which is that our technical schools now give our young men if any-
thing too much book learning (not because any man can really have
too much learning, but because they do mistake the real value of all
this theory). To my mind, the direction in which our graduates need
broadening for their practical success in life, is in having a much
larger knowledge of men and the ordinary aflFairs of life, rather than
in the realms of higher science. If it were a practical undertaking
to compel each young man to work a year as a mechanic after leaving
college, this might furnish one of the remedies. This, however, is
manifestly an impossibility. It is, however, practicable to my mind

270 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

to make young men have at least six months to a year of work as
mechanics, some time before they receive their degree, and after a
good deal of study of the subject, it seems to me that the best time for
this is either at the end of the freshman or sophomore year.

There are many reasons why the great majority of our technical
graduates do not have a year of practical work after graduating.
Among these are, (i) the lack of money; (2) the extreme irksome-
ness of this kind of hard work in competition necessarily with much
younger men, or even boys, after they look upon themselves as engi-
neers; (3) the feeling that their fine education is being wasted; (4)
the fear that unless they start right in to use their education other
men graduating at the same time will get ahead of them.

Three out of four of these reasons arise from the fact that the aver-
age technical graduate entirely mistakes the relative importance of
his college training with relation to the things which he must get
outside of college; and it is impossible to persuade young men that a
college education is not more important than their practical education,
whereas in fact I place the value of the technical education at the
very highest at not more than one quarter of the game. Three-
quarters must come outside of college.

All of these elements tend to drive these men into the drafting
room, or some similar narrowing position. The drafting room, to my
mind, occupies pretty nearly the same place with relation to engineer-
ing that bookkeeping does with relation to mercantile business. You
understand, of course, that I do not refer to those men who really
can supervise the originating and designing of important plants or
machinery, but such men, to be successful, must have had, generally
speaking, personal contact with the use and manufacture of machines.

As you know, the technical school at Charlottenburg stands pre-
eminently first among the German schools, and as far as I can hear
it ranks ahead of any other technical school in Europe. As you prob-
ably know, they have had a long fight in this school between the the-
orists and the practical men, the latter having won; and now no
engineering degree is given there to a man who has not had at least
one year of actual practical work in the shop, or in the case of civil
and mining engineers, in the field.

ON COLLEGES AND EDUCATION 271

I confidently believe that the first institution in this country
which follows the lead of this institution, and compels all of its
graduates to have at least one year of practical work before receiving
a degree, will lead all of the other technical schools in this country.

In December, 1908, Taylor received an invitation from
Herman Schneider, dean of the College of Engineering of the
University of Cincinnati, to visit that institution and look into
its " cooperative " courses. Established in 1 906, these six-
year courses contemplated that a student should work alter-
nate weeks in a mechanical, chemical, or electrical factory in
Cincinnati and at the College of Engineering. In replying
to Dean Schneider's invitation, Taylor wrote:

This interests me most especially, since without knowing of the
existence of such a course I had, through extended personal observa-
tion, come to the conclusion that some such mingling of practical
experience with college education is greatly needed. I am still person-
ally inclined to think that perhaps your periods of alternate shop work
and study are too short.

He visited the University of Cincinnati in February, 1909.
Later in writing to its president, Charles W. Dabney, he said :

As a practical man I had a certain doubt as to the possibility of suc-
cessfully mixing actual every-day work with university studies. But
if I " came to scoff I remained to pray." And I am confident that
the city of Cincinnati [the university there is a municipal institution]
has started the most important and what is destined to be the most
far-reaching movement in educational work in this country.

However, when writing the following October about the
Cincinnati cooperative course, he said:

I think this course gives a boy a splendid education, although it
appears to me that three years of shop work is more than is really
needed. I should say from one to two years would be all that is
necessary.

272 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

A little later in 1 909, he was called on to address the So-
ciety for the Promotion of Engineering Education. On this
occasion he said:

The central idea that the boy gets at college is training, training
of the mind, storing the mind full of things. Now I say, without
the slightest hesitation, that for success in life intellectual training
comes second or third. Without the slightest question, character
comes first; common sense second; and intellectual training third.
The entire emphasis of the college life is on intellectual training.
As long as a man commits no offense which sends him to jail, it is a
very small part of the business of those engaged in the management
of our universities as to what these boys do.

He then told of his plan of requiring students to work in
a shop, and continued:

When they start at work in a shop, under good rigid discipline,
they then begin to get the kind of character training which is almost
entirely lacking at college. They then begin to learn the great lesson
of life, that almost nine-tenths of the work that every man has to
do is monotonous, tiresome, and uninteresting. . . . They learn that
life is made up mainly of serving other people, not that the world is
there to teach them something new. . . .

There is another thing that they learn, which is of enormous im-
portance for these young men, and I think it has more to do with
making them earnest and determined than anything else. You could
lecture them and talk to them from now to doomsday, and tell them
that the man who runs a lathe is mentally born their equal, and they
won't believe it. They may acquiesce, but way back in their heads
they say, " Oh, yes, I believe it, but it is not so." That is their
mental attitude.

Young men who work in any first-class establishment will find
that many of the workmen who cannot talk grammatically, that men
who chew tobacco, slouch along the street with greasy overalls on,
hardly look up, who are scarcely willing to speak to you politely as
you pass them, are intellectually as clear as they are. That is what the

ON COLLEGES AND EDUCATION 273

young men learn through one year's work in a shop. I remember
very distinctly the perfectly astonishing awakening at the end of six
months of my apprenticeship, when I discovered that the three other
men who were with me in the pattern shop were all smarter than I
was. Now when a young man gets it clearly in his head that he
is made of the same kind of clay, physically as well as mentally, as
these other men, then he sees that his only hope not to be outstripped
in the race lies in a better education.

This latter address of Taylor's attracted much more atten-
tion than did his address of 1906 at the University of Penn-
sylvania. Obtaining the stenographic report of his 1909
address, The Electric Journal published it under the title,
" Why Manufacturers Dislike College Graduates." Later the
Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education issued
it in pamphlet form under the title, " Why Manufacturers
Dislike College Students." This society gave Taylor an
opportunity to correct the stenographic report, but he always
disclaimed responsibility for the title. The address was then
extensively reprinted in college journals, along with criticisms
of it made by members of college faculties. Finally The
Literary Digest^ under the title of " Do College Graduates
Make Bad Engineers? " printed extracts from the address
and from the articles replying to it. And by this time Tay-
lor, greatly to his annoyance, was made to appear as one who
had opposed any college training for engineers and had no
use for college graduates in general. Said he, in writing to
the publishers of The Literary Digest:

The title which you quote, " Do College Graduates Make Bad
Engineers? " gives directly the opposite impression from that which
I have always maintained, namely, that college graduates make the
very best engineers. In my address I was merely trying to point out
some defects in the college education of engineers which I think are
quite easily remediable.

274 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Here and there a professor warmly endorsed Taylor's posi-
tion. However, the general response of the professors was
such as to give evidence that as a class they were as much
opposed to him in this particular as in others. It was rather
what he expected. In November, 1909, Charles F. Scott,
consulting engineer of the Westinghouse Electric Company,
wrote to tell him that his address of that year had met with
" great approval " in engineering circles in Pittsburgh.

I am very glad indeed to hear [replied Taylor] that the views
which I hold on the matter are meeting with some approval. Un-
fortunately, I think they will meet with but little regard and produce
but very small impression upon that class of men who have the final
say in the matter, namely, the professors of engineering. I feel that
it is at present impossible to convince these men that practically the
whole of an engineer's education is not received from books and lec-
tures while he is at college. They are firmly convinced that the
practical end is of small moment, compared with what they have to
teach.

However, he kept pounding away with his idea and offer-
ing evidence in support of its value. In November, 1909, he
wrote to Professor Hollis:

I have not entirely given up the hope of inducing you all who are
in control of the education of mechanical engineers at Harvard to
consider at least one year of practical work as workmen in a shop,
as a part of your engineering course. I do not see why this year
could not be substituted for a portion of the undergraduate education
now required.

With a view especially of advocating this, I should appreciate the
opportunity of talking to Mr. Lowell [who then had just suc-
ceeded Mr. Eliot as president of Harvard]. I recently had a long
talk with Sir William White, who, as you know, is chiefly responsible
for the modern English navy. I think that Sir William White would
now be almost universally recognized as the foremost English engi-
neer. He, as you may remember, was the chairman of the noted

ON COLLEGES AND EDUCATION 275

English Committee on Engineering Education, which represented the
seven great British engineering societies; and this Committee unani-
mously voted that one year of actual vv^ork in a shop, outside of col-
lege, should be obligatory for all engineers; that is, marine, civil,
chemical, electrical, mechanical, and sanitary.

In talking with Sir William White, I found he was even more
emphatic than in the written report. He also stated that the report,
before being made public, was submitted to seven or eight hundred
(as I remember it) of the leading practical and successful engineers
of England, and that this provision for a year of shop work before
graduation was overwhelmingly endorsed by all of those engineers.

What Taylor did not write to Professor Hollis, but what
he did write to Charles F. Scott was this:

I asked Sir William White how it was that he succeeded in getting
a unanimous report from his Committee. His answer was unhesita-
ting and emphatic: " We got a unanimous report because we excluded
all college professors, and because our Committee was composed en-
tirely of engineers who were actually carrying on the great engineering
works in England."

Taylor was among those who listened to the address of
Mr. Lowell when this latter gentleman was inducted into
office as Harvard's president. He considered that the ad-
dress " outlined a magnificent programme for progress at
Harvard." However, in writing to Dean Edwin S. Gay, he
ventured this criticism:

I was in hopes that he [Mr. Lowell] would relieve the minds of
many critics and well-wishers of Harvard by telling them that in the
future the every-day decency and morality of the students was to be
a matter of direct concern to the management of the University.

He found it absurd that Harvard should require the de-
gree of A.B. from those who aspire to the degree of M.E.
Further ideas of his in this connection will be found in a

276 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

letter written by him in December, 19 lO, to Professor George
B. Wendell, of Columbia University's Department of Physics.
He was asked by Professor Wendell whether, in his opinion,
the " broad training in the sciences and in the humanities
should be sacrificed for the strictly technical courses " in case
there was not adequate time for both.

I feel very strongly [replied Taylor] that the courses now given
in most of our Engineering Schools are too diffuse; that the young
engineers are not taught in sufficient detail the great fundamentals
of engineering, and above all that in many cases they are led into more
or less superficial habits of mind.

My feeling is that the engineer is better trained for his work
through being taught to go into the few things which he studies thor-
oughly, so as to become in a way master of them, rather than spread-
ing himself out thin over a great variety of engineering subjects.

Perhaps the greatest defect which I have noticed in the school
training of young engineers is the inability of the average graduate
to either write or talk intelligently on engineering subjects, say be-
fore a board of directors or the manager of a company. When these
young men read reports or statements, they read them, in many cases,
like school boys of eight or ten years old, emphasizing the " ands "
and the " buts " just as strongly as they do the essence of what they
are reading; and this of course gives the impression of lack of culture
and incompetency to the men who are listening to them.

What they write is in the average case also crude in the extreme,
and not infrequently contains serious grammatical errors.

My strong feeling is that unless ample time and training is given
to young engineers to enable them to write, in fairly good style, a
report on any engineering subject, and then to read it in an intel-
ligent manner before a board of directors, that they should not be
taught one word of either French or German.

I do not pretend to say that it is necessary to abolish the teaching
of French or German to young engineers, but if the alternative is
turning out our young engineers with their present thoroughly inade-
quate knowledge of simple English, on the one hand, and teaching

I

ON COLLEGES AND EDUCATION 277

them French and German on the other hand, I should without the
slightest hesitation abandon the French and German.

I do not at all believe in having young engineers take, say, the ordi-
nary undergraduate university course before starting on their engi-
neering course. This brings them in contact with actual practical
working conditions too late in life, and they are so seriously handi-
capped that the men who have had this experience will be apt to drift
off into other occupations than engineering or manufacturing.

Consideration also must be given to these words which
Taylor let fall in his address of 1909 before the Society for
the Promotion of Engineering Education:

At college a very large amount of time is given up to the study of
materials. Practically the whole chemical course is the study of ma-
terials. A very considerable part of the course in physics has to do
with materials. The greater part of the work in a mechanical lab-
oratory is a study of materials. Do you gentlemen realize that the
great raw material with which more than half of the successful grad-
ates of our technical schools have to deal, receives not a single hour
of study at our colleges and universities, not one hour? That the
great raw material with which the managers, superintendents, and
presidents of every one of our large companies is dealing is
workmen .?

In 191 1, Ernest H. Abbott, of the editorial staff of The
Outlooky was inspired, in a speech at the Quill Club in New
York, to elaborate on these words of Taylor's. In referring
to such technical schools as Stevens, Cornell, and Massachu-
setts, Mr. Abbott said among other things:

These students study all kinds of machines, but the machines by
themselves are useless; and the one thing that makes them useful —
human labor — they learn nothing about. Now, scientific manage-
ment involves the minute, exact, scientific (if I may use the word)
laboratorial study of the one constant and most important factor —
labor. And by that I do not mean merely manual labor; I mean the

278 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

labor of superintendence, of planning, of adjustment between man
and man. Scientific labor can exist only as scientific management
creates it. There is no labor that is scientific that is not the product
of long arduous study with the methods of the laboratory.

These remarks of Abbott's drew a letter of protest from
President Humphries of Stevens. Thereupon Abbott wrote
to Taylor. " Was I right ? " he asked.

To my mind [replied Taylor], what you say is literally true, and
no one set of men need a more thorough shaking up than the man-
agers and directors of our universities and our engineering colleges.

I think that an article written by you along the lines which you sug-
gest will do a lot of good. It is a strange thing that the scientific
men in our universities and colleges, even those in our engineering
colleges, are among the most conservative with regard to the applica-
tion of scientific management. In fact, I may say that the two men
who have perhaps more bitterly attacked scientific management than
any others belong to this class.

Many of the young men related to Taylor followed his
plan of serving as workmen, and this mainly in the shop of
the Tabor Company. Among his warmest admirers were his
sister's children, Edward W., Franklin T., and Sewell Clark.
To hear " Uncle Fred " talk was to these boys a wonder and
a delight. Between Taylor and his oldest nephew, Edward
Clark, there was a special bond of sympathy, which was
strengthened by their many hours together on the links.
Despite the fact that this nephew of his was then a very
young man, Taylor made him the executor of his will. Ed-
ward Clark served in the Tabor shop from October, 1907, to
June, 1908, inclusive, and his brother Franklin served for
a like period in 191 2 and 191 3. Taylor's elder son, Kempton,
was there in 191 1 and 19 12, and his younger son, Robert, in
191 5 and 1916. Also in the Tabor shop while Edward Clark
was there was Frank Wallace, who later married the daughter

ON COLLEGES AND EDUCATION 279

of Taylor's brother. Of these young men, Frank Wallace and
Robert Taylor were the only ones destined to be engineers,
both going to Cornell. After Frank Wallace had returned to
Cornell from the Tabor shop, Taylor wrote him among other
things :

I can appreciate that it must be uncommonly irksome to return to
the continued study of mathematics and mathematical theories, after
having been engaged in active work. However, the theory is of
course a vital portion of an engineer's education; in fact, it is that part
which enables him in the end to rise above the ordinary man; that is,
providing he adds this scientific knowledge to the ordinary knowledge
possessed by the other man.

I am glad to hear that the Cornell authorities have accepted the
full value of your practical work.

It may be that Taylor, in his reaction against what ordinarily
passes for culture, went too farj that he had a little too much
scorn for the " humanities." As we take it, real culture is
that which widens one's sympathies and thus is the cure for
egotism or the inability to see oneself and one's work in proper
relation to the universe. It is that which transforms a farmer
into a man farming. It is that which makes of a mechanical
engineer a man specializing in the science of mechanical devices.
Now, Taylor was born cultured in the sense that he was born
with sympathies so wide that when he became an engineer he
remained primarily a man. Thus it may well have been that
he was led to entertain a false idea of the average man's
need of the humanities by his own moderate need of the same.

However, from what here has been presented of his views,
it should be clear that he had in mind these truths: that the
end of knowledge is service to mankind, and only incidentally
one's own satisfaction j that to the extent which universities
and colleges fail to turn out young men who are useful to
society they have no reason for existence j that a college train-

280 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

ing is ruinous when it works out to give a man an idea that
his clay is different from that of the massj that that education
is a farce which does not above all other things produce char-
acter — i.e., power of self-reliance, self-control, self-govern-
ment.

I

CHAPTER X

LECTURING AT HOME AND AFIELD

WHEN in 1907 Professor Hollis of Harvard wrote to him
expressing an interest in his views on education, Taylor added
to his reply these words:

I should very much appreciate the opportunity of showing you, in
some of the manufacturing establishments which are managed under
our system, the means which we adopt for rapidly developing suc-
cessful men in the various lines of management. A few hours spent
in actual observation would show more than any amount of talk or
writing. If it is possible for you to come to Philadelphia, it is need-
less to say that it would be a very great pleasure to have you come to
my house, and afterwards visit two or three of our manufacturing
establishments.

This invitation is typical of many which, after he had be-
come settled at Boxly and the Tabor and Link-Belt develop-
ments were well advanced, he issued to people who had taken
and those who he wished would take an interest in his ideas
pertaining to management and the education of men for man-
agement.

It has been said that his metal-cutting paper of 1906 had
the retroactive effect of drawing increased attention to his man-
agement paper of 1903. It is certain that the year 1907 saw a
sudden increase of interest in his general principles, that his
correspondence leaped accordingly, and that thereupon began
in real earnest the pilgrimage to Boxly of men and women
seeking light on all sorts of management problems.

When he had not been at some establishment where he was
regularly employed, he all along had relied upon public

281

282 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

stenographers for help in getting out his correspondence, and
this continued to be his general practice up to December,
1 9 13, when Miss Frances Mitchell, who had served under
him at Madison, Maine, took up her residence in Chestnut
Hill and became his regular secretary. However, beginning
in December, 1906, a public stenographer of Philadelphia
was employed by him steadily 3 if she did not give him all
her time, she went out to his home nearly every day.

When beginning his work as a consulting engineer, it be-
came his habit (fortunately for his biographer) to preserve,
through systematic filing, copies of all his dictated letters,
together with the letters written to him. After 1906, and
especially after 19 10, he often was called upon to dictate be-
tween thirty and forty letters a day, many of them necessarily
lengthy. He improved in this work as he did in everything
else. At the beginning, at least in letters of a routine busi-
ness nature, he showed in his use of words the niggardliness
and angularity of the ordinary business manj but gradually
he learned how to be both thrifty with words and cordial,
and as he warmed to his task, became able to turn out what
we are sure will be recognized as masterpieces of clearness
and force.

While the stenographers who took his addresses and his
testimony at public hearings usually had a hard task, this was
not the case with those who took his dictation for letters.
When he spoke for the benefit of listeners, he let himself
go, gave his thought its own headj when he was conscious that
his words were to be taken down for the benefit of a reader,
he was deliberate 5 which is to say that he systematically culti-
vated the art of determining definitely what he wished to say
and of articulating his thought in advance of speaking, so
that he was able to proceed with a high order of precision
and with little or no repetition.

His social nature, his freedom from egotism, his manly

LECTURING AT HOME AND AFIELD 283

sweetness, his loyalty to and thoughtfulness of his friends
— all this was stamped upon his correspondence. He really
corresponded j in answering letters, it evidently was his aim
to respond, not only in the same spirit, but to every point
that had been raised. Did a friend write him on Sunday?
Then was that friend likely to be chided for being indoors
when he ought to be out getting recreation. Did he hear
something pleasant said about a friend? Then to the friend
that pleasant thing promptly was communicated.

But the invitations to Boxly! Broadcast they went on a
truly royal scale. Come to luncheon, come to dinner, stay
all night. And here are the detailed instructions for your
journey. Aye, his home, too, existed not merely for himself
and his own immediate circle, but for broadly social ends.

Now, the ideas back of his campaign were these: (i) if you
want to know what a thing is like, look at it and seej (2) ob-
ject lessons, concrete examples, are the most effective form of
teaching J (3) but no one can see a thing as it really is unless
he has had some preparation for seeing it 5 no one, for ex-
ample, can really see a steam-engine or a lathe unless he
approaches it with some knowledge of the principles of its
construction. Hence if people were to see Scientific Manage-
ment in actual operation in the plants of the Tabor and Link-
Belt companies, they must first gain some knowledge of the
principles of Scientific Management j and so Taylor proposed
that, in advance of their visits to these plants, they come to
Boxly and listen to him talk. There also was behind all
this his purpose, which increased with the years, that no one
should undertake the installation of Scientific Management,
with all that meant in the way of trouble and expense, with-
out his knowing just what he was doing.

Among the pilgrims to Boxly were engineers, indus-
trial and college executives, men and women interested in all
phases of educational and social work, army and navy officers.

284 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

representatives of other government departments, and editors
and writers. At first they came singly and in small groups.
But later, especially after 1910, they often came in parties
of as many as twenty-five or thirty. Regular days eventually
were set for their coming j usually they gathered twice a
week; the hour appointed being in the forenoon so that they
would have plenty of time for visiting the Tabor and Link-
Belt plants in the afternoon.

It was but a step from the railway station to the Boxly
grounds. There the pilgrims passed down the broad box-
bordered walk, past the beautiful lawns and gardens; thence
into the main hall of the house, and on through the connect-
ing hall, past Taylor's workroom, into the living room. A spa-
cious room possessing length; fastidiously orderly, and a
room in which people of discriminating taste found them-
selves at home. The bookcases, the tables containing books
and magazines, and the grand piano signified the room's or-
dinary uses. At the far end a large fireplace. On one side
windows of normal size opening on the lawns and gardens.
On the opposite side, the two great windows; one looking
into the conservatory, with its mass of blooming flowers; the
other affording a sweeping view of the Wissahickon treetops
and the pastoral hills beyond. Usually the pilgrims were so
seated that while they listened to Taylor talk, their eyes might
rest on this latter view. Rather an awesome environment for
some of the seared engineers and hardened business men who
treked there. And rather an oddly-contrasting setting for
Taylor's talk, particularly at the beginning.

In 1907, Morris L. Cooke, who then engineered most of
these gatherings, thought it would be a good idea to introduce
a court stenographer at one of them and present the stenog-
rapher's report to Taylor. Upon reading the report, Taylor
was all but crushed. "Did I actually say that! " he ex-
claimed. Presumably there are more than a few of us who

LECTURING AT HOME AND AFIELD 285

also would be chagrined if we saw set forth in black and
white the language we ordinarily use. Certainly Taylor's
talk was unconventional in the extreme. Eloquently it spoke
of that insouciance bred in him by his sense of power. Here
is a sample : " I ought to say at the start that what I am
going to say will sound extremely conceited. It will sound
as though we were very much stuck on ourselves, but we are
not so much stuck on ourselves as we are on the idea. I am
very much stuck on the idea and not particularly stuck on
ourselves, although the general impression will be that we
have a wonderfully high opinion of ourselves and of every-
thing that we are doing."

Another unconventional touch often was lent by Putmut,
the cat. While Taylor was speaking, his " little intellectual
friend " was wont to stalk in unconcernedly, leap up to his
shoulder, lick his ear, and lie on his shoulder purring. Some-
times he would have to put his furry friend down when he
started to go to his workroom for a book. But then Putmut
would saunter after him, and likewise return in his wake.
" Oh, Fred," the ladies of the household might protest, " why
don't you keep Putmut out! — those men will think you are
silly." " Well," he would reply, " somehow they don't."

After he read the report of his talk made by the stenogra-
pher, he paid a little more heed to what he said and how he
said it. Here again he steadily improved j and it was through
his efforts to better these talks that there gradually took
shape in his mind what he came to call the four principles of
Scientific Management. However, he rightly continued to
feel that rules which apply to language addressed to the eye
may not necessarily apply to language addressed to the ear,
and that his talks were effective, there can be no possible
doubt whatever. In May, 1909, Milton J. Greenman, di-
rector of Philadelphia's Wistar Institute of Anatomy and
Biology, wrote to Cooke:

286 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

I wish to thank you for arranging one of the most delightful ex-
periences I ever had. Mr. Taylor's lecture followed by the demon-
stration was exceedingly interesting to me, although I must say there
is so much to the system that one cannot hope to do more than study
it for a long while before attempting to make any beginning whatever.

I was very much pleased with Mr. Taylor's personality. From
what you had told me, I had expected to find an elderly gentleman
who was doing things leisurely; on the contrary, I found a man in
the prime of life who is doing his "damnedest" with a high pressure
of steam.

Gradually he evolved a sort of standardized talk. Yet to
it he continued to give every appearance of spontaneity. And
here again we can see what histrionic ability was his. As his
talk became standardized, it, despite the rapidity of his deliv-
ery, lasted for two hours or more. In writing in 1910 to the
Meetings Committee of the A. S. M. E. about his paper The
Princi-ples of Scientific Management y he said:

I have been trying to write this paper for the past five years and
entirely at the request of various members of our Society who had
heard me deliver it orally.

In commenting on the length of the paper and the number of
illustrations given in it, it is a curious fact that I find my average
audience during the first half of the paper to be entirely antago-
nistic to the principles which I am announcing, and it is only during
the latter part of the paper that they become convinced.

On account of this, he finally enjoined on his auditors that
they must never interrupt. When he had finished, they could
ask all the questions they liked j and for their convenience in
noting questions that might occur to them as he went along,
they were supplied with small scratch-pads. He found that
this rule of his compelling silence until he had finished shut
off many unnecessary questions, and thus left more time for
him, when his regular discourse was finished, to deal with

LECTURING AT HOME AND AFIELD 287

those who sought light on particular applications of his prin-
ciples.

And many and divers were the aspects o£ management
upon which light from him was sought. There was a manu-
facturer of pottery who complained that he had no con-
trol over his shop whatever, that this control was entirely in
the hands of his men. He was asked how much he knew
about the pottery-making process. " Nothing," he replied.
" Well," said Taylor, " if I were you, I would make a start
by learning something about my own business." A man
asked him what he would do if he were handling paper and
found that the atmosphere often caused it to shrink as much
as an eighth of an inch. " Pd change the atmosphere," said
Taylor promptly. Everybody smiled at what they supposed
was a joke, but as a matter of fact this very thing now is done
through various mechanical devices for controlling the tem-
perature and humidity within a plant.

For those who showed any ability at all to grasp his prin-
ciples he could not do enough j the day hardly was long
enough to hold the time that he would spend with them.
With others, his way was short and sharp. A shoe manufac-
turer questioned the need of giving workers a bonus of from
2S to 50 per cent for maintaining standards; in his opinion,
20 per cent would be plenty. " Well," said Taylor, peering
at him over his spectacles, " you are a damn hog." The
words on paper may not look pretty. But the fact is that
as they came from him they raised a shout of laughter. Even
the victim smiled, albeit sheepishly.

In June, 191 1, he wrote to Gantt: "I find it very tire-
some and monotonous giving these talks to people, but feel
that is the only way to really drive the thing home. We
all of us have our particular field in this business, and I
am afraid that to me has fallen the lot of being a * perennial
phonograph,' as one of my friends has recently called me."

288 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Doggedly he went on with this dutyj for one grand thing
about him was that there apparently was no particular in
which he himself was not willing to take the medicine he pre-
scribed for others.

Now, among the exceptional professors who early were
led to take an active interest in Taylor's management ideas
was Dean Wallace C. Sabine, of Harvard's Graduate School
of Applied Science, and in April, 1908, he recommended
these ideas to Edwin F. Gay, then a professor in Harvard's
Division of Economics. The consequence was that in the
following month Dean Sabine and Professor Gay heard Tay-
lor give his talk at Boxly and then visited the Tabor and
Link-Belt plants. Upon his return to Cambridge, Dean
Sabine wrote to Taylor this significant letter:

I want to thank you for my very pleasant and profitable trip.
Beginning with (what I subsequently learned was) a very vague
idea of your work, I found myself more and more persuaded of
the very real problem that you are solving and of the fact that it is
a problem of surprisingly exact solution. Moreover, while listening
to you and even more in thinking it over since I left you, I am
persuaded that you are on the track of the only reasonable solution
of a great sociological problem. The systematization and standard-
ization of work has a bearing far beyond the organization of a
particular business or industry. I do not believe that you are a
socialist any more than I am, but you are preparing data for the
solution of a problem on which socialistic and cooperative movements
have time after time been wrecked. Since machinery will improve,
the determination of the rate of work is a never ending problem. It
is a very great contribution, however, to have shown that it is a
problem capable of solution and to have gone the very great distance
that you have gone in solving it and in laying a basis for its con-
tinued solution. I congratulate you most heartily on this piece of
work, for, broadly, I appreciate it, though, of course, in its details
I do not, even after your careful explanation, entirely comprehend it.

LECTURING AT HOME AND AFIELD 289

In replying, Taylor said:

Your words of appreciation and encouragement have given me
the greatest satisfaction. As I told you, v^^e have the greatest con-
fidence in the good that will ultimately come from the adoption
of exact methods in management. The slow progress which we
have made in their general introduction, however, has been a keen
disappointment to all of us, and particularly to me, since the change
required in the mental attitude of both the managers and the work-
men is so great that it seems impossible to bring it about without the
continued presence in the establishment of a leader who devotes his
whole time to the introduction of the task idea. This fact limits
our usefulness to comparatively a small number of companies at any
one time, and when one considers the enormous number of companies
in the country and the few whom we can effectively reach with our
teaching force, it is a matter for deep regret.

While Dean Sabine was enthusiastic over his trip, the
first reaction of his companion, Professor Gay, was unfavor-
able. There was a particular reason why Gay had gone with
Sabine to Philadelphia. At this time there was being or-
ganized at Harvard what became known as the Harvard
Graduate School of Business Administration. This school
was to open in September, 1908, with Gay as its dean. It
was to give instruction in the " central activities " of business j
business being defined by Gay as " the manufacturing and sell-
ing of goods at a profit, decently." The question was, how
much attention, if any, should this school pay to Taylor's
ideas. If Gay's first reaction was unfavorable, this was largely
overcome when Barth took him in hand and answered the
many questions and objections that had occurred to him.
Then, after further discussion with Dean Sabine, Mr. Gay
made his decision: his graduate school was to consider the
Taylor System the final word in management 5 this system
should be made the prominent feature of the first year course,
and everything taught in the school should lead up to it.

290 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

However, when he sought to enlist Taylor's support, he
was astonished to find him opposed. It was Taylor's opinion
that his system could be taught only in the shop. In the dis-
cussion that followed it was revealed that Taylor's ideas on
education differed markedly in some particulars from Gay's.
But Gay had not studied Taylor's dominating personality for
naught. " All right," he at length said, " I am going right
ahead to teach your system with or without any help from
you." And that brought Taylor around.

Eventually Dean Gay enlisted the support not only of
Taylor himself, but also of such staunch Taylorites as Barth,
Hathaway, Cooke, and Sanford E. Thompson. It was Gay's
original idea to begin the teaching of the Taylor System with
a course on time study conducted by Thompson. This idea
Taylor combatted with vehemence j he said it would be like
teaching architecture by putting cornices on houses. So Gay
abandoned the ideaj and not until 1910 did Thompson give
instruction in time study 5 and this only for advanced stu-
dents, and in connection with building operations.

Never did Taylor become wildly enthusiastic over the
teaching of Scientific Management in the Harvard business
school. He was far more interested in engineering schools.
And the years served but to increase his dissent from some
of Gay's views.

Writing to that gentleman in October, 191 3, he said:

I beh'eve that you look upon me as prejudiced in the matter of
the type of education needed in the successful introduction of our
system of management. I am sorry for this, and yet I am unable
to change my convictions in this matter, which are based not on
any theory, but on observation and an actual trial of candidates,
including those of a large variety of education and experience.

Mr. Hathaway, Mr. Cooke and I have recently had talks together
regarding the kind of men who are likely to make good as candi-
dates for this work, and our study of those who have gone into the

LECTURING AT HOME AND AFIELD 291

matter leads us to the reluctant conclusion that the man who has
spent too many years in getting a college education and has been re-
moved for too great a length of time from actual practical every-
day w^ork, is highly unlikely to make good in this profession. Hatha-
way goes so far as to say that he has almost arrived at the conclusion
that it will be necessary for us to select our successful candidates
from men who have come right up from the ranks as workmen; that
men who are now making good in the best way and most rapidly
making good, are invariably men who have graduated first as machin-
ists, then as gang bosses, and then as planning room men, in one
position after another, and have shown their ability to bring things
to pass.

The great trouble with the men who have been too many years
getting an academic education is that they have not had the ex-
perience in being obliged to " get there." If they understand the
theory of the thing and feel thoroughly convinced that such and
such a proposition is right, they almost invariably attempt to get other
men to do what they ought to do by reasoning, persuasion, and talk,
and by giving them orders and directing them what to do. And this
way of dealing with men, as I have said many times, is productive of
but very small results. I have found it necessary almost invariably
to talk but little to men, but to go right ahead and make them
do what I wanted them to do, and this implies the experience of
knowing how, by hook or crook, to get men to do what at the time
they do not wish to do. It is part persuasion and part force, and
the presentation of actual object lessons of various kinds, and the
academic man neither understands nor believes in the use of this
sort of force.

Mr. Hathaway, Mr. Cooke and I have come to the definite con-
clusion that no man should be again allowed to go into any of our
establishments to study scientific management. He should go into
these establishments to work as a workman, and learn what scien-
tific management is from the lower end up, not from the upper
end down. One trouble with the man who has had a very extensive
academic education is that he fails to see any good coming to him
from long continued work as a workman in one of our plants.

292 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

This letter Taylor held for more than a month, or until
November 13, when he sent it to Gay along with the follow-
ing:

I am enclosing herewith a letter written by me on October 9.
When I came to read it over, however, it rather made me feel that
you might think that I was in some way speaking in a discouraging
way of your Graduate Business School. This is far from being the
case. I have no doubt that a great deal of good will come from
your school, but I very much doubt whether most of the men who
graduate from this school will ever become men capable of intro-
ducing scientific management. Many of them may ultimately become
good managers.

What is still running in my mind, however, and what I wish
to emphasize is that in my judgment you exact entirely a wrong
requirement for men who are to be candidates for a degree from
your school, and after all the degree is the best indication which you
have of showing that they have done satisfactory work.

I feel that if your degree wishes to indicate those men who are
most likely to make good in the field of management, you might
just as well stipulate that they should have taken a course in medicine
or law, or should have demonstrated their success as first-class ath-
letes, as that they should receive the A.B. degree as a prerequisite to
the degree which you confer in your course on Business Administration.
Those men who are likely to be the greatest credit to your college,
in my mind, and who are likely to rise to the top in the companies
in which they are employed, are men who have already demonstrated
their ability to make good in business, and who come back to you,
desiring a larger and wider education; and if any one entrance re-
quirement is demanded, this should be the one; namely, an investi-
gation showing that they already have made good as heads of depart-
ments or as business managers of some sort.

About one man in ten who has the ability to get the A.B. degree
Jias the ability and the force of character and the pluck and grit
which are needed to be successful managers of men. Therefore,
choose from among those who have shown this quality, rather than
those who have received the A.B. degree.

LECTURING AT HOME AND AFIELD 293

I hope that you will not misunderstand the spirit in which I write.
I think that I have already told you that I am quite as strongly op-
posed to the same requirements for men entering your Mechanical
Engineering School, and the longer I live the more firm my convic-
tion becomes in this respect/

From the beginning, of course, Gay wished to have Taylor
lecture.

Now, when Taylor in 1907 was invited by the Pratt In-
stitute of Brooklyn to deliver a commencement address that
would be " full of inspiration and encouragement," he ex-
plained his inability to be counted on in these words : " I am
sorry to say that I am very poor at such work as this. I write
exceedingly slowly, and when I have completed my work it
has no literary merit. I therefore have made it a rule to
undertake no work of this sort unless I have something espe-
cial to say which I feel, owing to some special opportunities
I may have had, cannot be better said by some one else."
This stand he took throughout with reference to invitations to
speak. And it was true that he had no skill at taking a theme
and ringing the changes on it.

However, as invitations to speak kept coming to him, they
stirred him to give thought as to what he really might have
to say. If, for example, it had not fallen to him to deliver
an address in 1906 at the opening of the University of Penn-
sylvania's new engineering building, his views on education
might never have become crystallized. In like manner, his
lecture on " Success " was the direct outcome of an invitation
he received in August, 1908, to address the students of the
College of Engineering of the University of Illinois. When,

^ While no one is likely to dispute that Taylor was entirely right in hold-
ing- that men desiring to master Scientific Management should serve as work-
men, it may fairly be open to question whether in these letters to Dean Gay
he did not exhibit his proneness to undervalue the humanities. It is certain
that most of the men who to-day are carrying on by word and example the
movement he started are men of university training.

294 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

at the instance of the college's dean, this invitation was sent
him by Professor A. N. Talbot, chairman of the lecture com-
mittee, it was suggested that he might like to talk to the
students on "such topics as research in the art of cutting
metals or researches in the cost of production." Feeling
that he had nothing to say on such topics that would be of
interest to students, he declined the invitation. Five months
later, in January, 1909, he wrote to Professor Talbot: "I
have since thought the matter over, and have concluded that
I may be able to say something on the subject of * Success '
which may be of use to young engineers."

His suggestion being cordially indorsed, he gave his
" Success " lecture at the University of Illinois in Urbana on
February 18, 1909. As a matter of fact, it was on this trip
west that he visited the College of Engineering of the Univer-
sity of Cincinnati to look into that college's " cooperative
courses," and just before delivering his " Success " lecture at
the University of Illinois, he tried it out there in Cincinnati.
The manuscript he used as a basis was prepared by him with
infinite pains. In a letter written at a southern resort hotel
in March, 1909, to Professor Hollis, of Harvard's Division
of Engineering, he said:

Just before coming down here I delivered two addresses, one to
the engineering students in Cincinnati University, and the other to
the engineering section at Ilh'nois University, on " Success," and I
believe that the talk which I gave them had some effect.

I have selected some ten or fifteen instances from the h'ves of the
most successful American engineers and managers illustrating the
all important fact that the ordinary qualities of common sense,
character, grit, endurance, etc., count for more in attaining success
than book learning or intellectual attainments. And it is curious
that in almost all of the incidents which started these men on the
upward road, intellectual brilliancy had but a small part. I feel
that all engineering students particularly ought to realize this as a
fact, since it is likely to save them some unhappy days in later life.

LECTURING AT HOME AND AFIELD 295

It will be seen that his aim was to counteract what he con-
sidered the principal defect of the usual engineering course.
We know what dismal things talks to young men on success
ordinarily are. That Taylor's was dijf event should be man-
ifest from the excerpts from it we have presented in this
work. In our opinion, the manuscript he prepared for this
lecture was the finest bit of writing he ever didj himself to
the contrary notwithstanding, he here by hard work produced
something of great literary merit. As the lecture was deliv-
ered by him again and again at various engineering schools,
it undoubtedly was a brilliant performance. There is unan-
imous testimony that, though it lasted for about two hours,
his student audiences were held motionless throughout. To
begin with, his personality had fascination for practically all
young men J they could not help but feel that in him soared
the fearless, venturesome, enthusiastic spirit of immortal
youth. Then, as we have seen, his lecture was made up of
exact rules and clearly-defined principles, illustrated in the
concrete with a running series of ancedotes; the whole being
served hot from the griddle of lifej his own life mostly,
though that was concealed. No Sunday-school talk this
that contained such expressions as " Damn you, get out of
here and get that valve! " Pretty strong meat for babes and
sucklings, it may be thought j but then, you see, these were
engineering students whom Taylor was seeking to prepare
for what they actually would have to face in the mill, so
that their feelings might not then be hurt and they prove
quitters.

In writing to Professor Hollis of Harvard about this lec-
ture, he also said: " I feel quite sure (although please don't
quote me) that far more managers will come from your
Engineering School than from your Business Course, and for
this reason I should really have a greater interest in speaking
to the young engineers than to the Business Section." How-

296 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

ever, we have seen that he felt that a " great deal of good "
could come from the business school, and he was persuaded
that to students in such a school he might have something
really to say also. Thus, even while he was preparing and
delivering his lecture to engineering students, he set about
preparing a series of three lectures for the business school.

He was pleased to refer to these lectures as merely a " re-
hash " of his A. S. M. E. papers. The first may largely
have merited this characterization j being devoted to bringing
out in sharp contrast the fundamental difference between
his system and the best of the older types of management,
or that of " initiative and incentive." However, there was
little of rehashing in his latter two lectures, which were re-
spectively entitled by him " Workmen and Their Man-
agement " and " An Outline of the Organization of a Manu-
facturing Establishment under Modern Scientific or Task
Management."

The series of three first were given in April and May, 1909.
The first lecture, which was much like one of his Boxly
talks, was delivered by him with the aid of only a few notes.
The other two were at first largely read from carefully-
prepared manuscripts. He was in doubt as to whether to
read from manuscripts or speak without their aid. " The ad-
vantage of reading," he wrote Gay, " is that I can go much
faster and so get over a far larger ground. On the other
hand, it is possible that the subject matter is not so well
impressed upon the minds of the listeners as when it is de-
livered with more of the personal element in evidence." He
was rightly advised to do without his manuscripts as much
as possible J for they hampered him in letting himself go,
and audacity and dash were his strong points. All three of
his lectures were, in the main, extremely unconventional. As
in his " Success " lecture, there was a plenteous sprinkling of
illustrative anecdotes. Labor unions were handled without

LECTURING AT HOME AND AFIELD 297

gloves. " Cuss " words abounded. It seemed as if there in
the sacred precincts of Harvard he took grim satisfaction in
reflecting the language of the mill. And it doubtless gave
him the same sort of satisfaction to say that " the working
man and the college professor have fundamentally the same
feeling, the same motives, the same ambitions, the same fail-
ings, the same virtues."

He repeated his lectures in November of 1909, and in the
following winters up to and including 19 14. From year to
year he improved them 3 among other things becoming less
harsh in his references to labor unions, and using " cuss "
words less promiscuously and more artistically. " In all mi-
nor matters," says Dean Gay, " he could readily be advised."
Following each lecture he devoted much time to answering
questions. These question periods were especially popular
with the young Harvard men among his audiences, as he
discovered when, in 191 2, he asked his nephew, Franklin
Taylor Clark, then a senior at Harvard, to let him know how
his lectures were received. As a matter of fact, he was ad-
vised by his nephew to shorten his lecture periods and
lengthen the question periods j for by this time his ideas were
becoming more and more familiar through his published writ-
ings. There is no doubt that if he had had a little more
skill in ringing the changes on his theme, it would have
greatly helped him with his lectures in general as time went
on. His nephew's advice almost caused him to abandon his
Harvard lectures forthwith} he was persuaded to continue only
upon its being represented to him that the course on Scientific
Management without him would be like the play of Hamlet
minus Hamlet. Despite the defect in his lectures referred
to, the impression he continued to make at Harvard was such
that when Dean Gay organized in 1 9 1 3 his " Advanced
Course in the Taylor System of Scientific Management," he
did his best to get Taylor to take charge of it.

298 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

One large Boston corporation, an officer of which had at-
tended Taylor's Harvard lectures, sent down to hear Taylor
talk at Boxly, and to visit the Tabor and Link-Belt plants, no
less than five parties each made up of from three to fifteen
managers, assistant managers, and embryo managers. Being
accustomed to pay liberally for all the value it received, this
company was embarrassed by its inability to make Taylor any
return. " We should like," the secretary wrote, " to feel
free to call on you occasionally at your home in Philadelphia
to discuss points of management as they may arise in our busi-
ness, much in the same way that we would call on our
general counsel in legal matters." Many were the large
corporations that gladly would have paid him handsome fees
for this purpose J but the fact is that, having back in 1901 de-
termined to stop working for money, Taylor refused to take
even such money as was offered to reimburse him for the
traveling expenses incurred on his lecture trips. As checks
were sent him for his Harvard lectures he returned them,
and with his permission they were applied to the general
purposes of Gay's school.

And now let us see what time and effort he freely gave
to the United States Government and what was his reward.

CHAPTER XI

SERVING THE NAVY

IF MEN who have succeeded or have it in them to succeed
in private work are likely to cherish a distaste for govern-
ment work, it permits of a ready explanation. As Tay-
lor pointed out in his University of Pennsylvania address, a
fundamental characteristic of such men is singleness of pur-
pose. And to the degree that government work is affiliated
with politics, the man who does it is not free to make it his
single purpose to do it well.

So alive was Taylor to the disadvantages of government
work that he told his associates who undertook it that they
ought to charge the government twenty-five per cent more
than they would a private employer. Yet he himself was
drawn into serving without stint of energy or cent of pay the
engineering and manufacturing work of the navy's yards and
of the army's Ordnance Department. While his regard for
various individuals in the navy and army may have had
something to do with his being drawn into this work, it surely
will appear that the only thing which could have induced him
to continue with it was his patriotism.

In the years that had followed their association in the man-
agement of the Manufacturing Investment Company, Taylor
and Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich had kept in close touch
with each other. In the periods when the admiral was off
on his cruises, they regularly exchanged letters. Speaking
of these years during which Taylor was developing his sys-
tem. Admiral Goodrich says: " I was with him, at least in
spirit, at almost every step."

299

300 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Now, in 1907, which was the second year of the second
administration of President Roosevelt, Goodrich was ordered
to the command of the Brooklyn Navy Yardj and the excit-
ing experiences he there had are described by him in a letter
especially prepared for our benefit:

In absolutely no respect was that great government estabh'shment
up to date. Antiquated methods, wholly unnecessary red tape, old
machinery, slow work marked every department. The same was
true of all our yards. Having been brought up industrially under
the shadow of Mr. Taylor's wing, I chafed under such a state of
affairs. I realized that much could be done even under the laws and
regulations as they then existed, but I mistrusted my own knowledge
and ability to introduce the desired reforms. Going over the whole
question with Mr. Taylor, I sought his advice, received it unstintingly,
and was encouraged by him to make a start.

At that time the navy yards were under the general supervision
of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Truman H. Newberry.
Soon after assuming command, I saw this gentleman and told him
what he already knew, that the condition of the yards was hopelessly
bad; that it was impossible to change anything without improving it
— and I asked him whether recommendations from me would be
favorably considered. He jumped at the suggestion; said he knew
that things could not go on long as they were; that if the Navy did
not reform its yards. Congress would step in and reform them for it.
I told him that I was fortunate enough to have as a warm personal
friend the ablest mechanical engineer in the country, and that I
should not bring anything to his, the Secretary's, notice until I had
thrashed it out with Mr. Taylor.

It is well to remark that each change, after being tried out in my
individual command, was enforced at all other navy yards. What
was done created consternation throughout naval circles and brought
upon me personally many bitter reproaches. The way of the re-
former is beset with thorns, as I found to my cost. Too many
ancient idols were destroyed; too many soft jobs eliminated; too
many sinecures abolished; too many toes trodden upon, to make the
perpetrator of these measures popular. Nothing in these respects

SERVING THE NAVY 301

was done by me or through me during this period without Mr.
Taylor's knowledge and approval. It may be that without him there
would still have been some reform in our navy yards, but not on so
large a scale surely, nor at that time.

When I say that at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, when I took over
the command, there were no less than five paint shops, five groups
of machine shops, five carpenter shops, etc., etc., under independent
heads, the possibilities of economy, through concentrating each class
under one roof, becomes manifest.

It will suffice if I mention two particular cases out of the great
number of reforms effected. One which touched me especially was
the first to be undertaken. I soon learned that the Commandant's
time was largely taken up by signing papers in which he had no
interest, and perfunctory endorsements, such as " Respectfully re-
ferred to for compliance," etc. The result of this practice

was to keep him all day long at his desk and out of the yard.
Whether this was the object I cannot say, but the effect was that,
except as to matters brought by others to his notice, he remained in
ignorance of what was going on in the establishment he was supposed
to control. On occasion he had to write his own name as many as
800 times in one day, and rarely less than three or four hundred
times.

After conferring with Mr. Taylor, I formulated a plan by which
only the large, important, and original subjects should pass over the
Commandant's desk — everything trivial or in the way of routine to
go direct between the offices concerned. This plan was adopted by
Mr. Newberry for the entire service. It reduced my official signa-
tures to about forty per diem and left me with ample time to roam
over the yard and study the necessity and opportunity of change.
Thus I was able, from time to time, to submit to Mr. Newberry
certain ameliorations, etc., most of which met his approval. To these
should be added not a few of his own. In consequence all machine
shops, all pattern shops, etc., were gradually consolidated. Much
needed room was thereby gained. The annual demand for new
shops, store houses, and what not, ceased from that date. This sav-
ing to the government baffies calculation.

302 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

The other instance I shall cite relates to tools and tool steel. Each
yard used to send in annually a " requisition " for the amounts and
kinds of steel needed in each department. The amounts were as-
tounding as to size, and the kinds, carefully named by brand, seemed
to include pretty nearly every variety in the market. It w^as evident
that buying by brand and in such quantities deprived the government
of all the benefits of competition and obliged it to pay the highest
price in every instance. On my recommendation, a Tool Steel
Board was formed by the Navy Department to lay down specifica-
tions by which the desired material could be procured through sealed
bids.

It was, of course, to Mr. Taylor that I went in this connection.
By his help, obtained through me, the Tool Steel Board was able
to define the composition and prescribe the tests necessary to produce
a satisfactory tool steel. In this manner, material which formerly
cost the government $1.25 a pound was obtained at less than 40 cents.
I was informed that the new steel was far more efliicient than the old.

Our next step — Mr. Newberry's, Mr. Taylor's, and mine — was
to close up all tool making shops in the Atlantic yards and concen-
trate that work at League Island. The yards might dress and re-
grind old tools, or make new ones of special shape for some particu-
lar job, but they were forbidden to make standard shapes and sizes.
This measure automatically substituted uniform, scientifically de-
signed cutting tools for the weird, whimsical diversity which had
preceded them.

Writing in 1909 to Holden A. Evans, then a naval con-
structor, Taylor said:

To be called a navy yard worker is still a slur on a workman, as
it used to be when I was an apprentice. I remember hearing, time
and time again, a fine old foreman in the establishment in which I
was serving my apprenticeship say to the men under him: "Here,
young' fellow, git a move on you. You ain't workin' in no damn
navy yard." , ^|

For the slack conditions in the navy yards there was a
special reason, as Taylor brought out in a paper on " Govern-

SERVING THE NAVY 303

ment Efficiency" written in 1911.^ As early as 1909, Gen-
eral William Crozier, then the army's Chief of Ordnance, had,
with the advice of Taylor and the direct assistance of Barth,
undertaken to introduce Scientific Management into some of
the government's manufacturing arsenals. Thus by 191 1
Taylor had been brought into close touch with the army's
engineering and manufacturing as well as with the similar
work done by the navy. And this confirmed what long be-
fore he had been led to believe 5 namely, that the army's
general manufacturing work, however much it might be im-
proved, was as good as the navy's was poor. In explaining
this in this "Government Efficiency" paper, he said:

As a class, our naval officers represent a magnificent body of
picked men. . . . The writer has been fortunate in having been
placed in close, intimate, personal contact with numbers of these
men for years, because he was engaged in the Midvale Steel Works,
in the Bethlehem Steel Works, and Cramp's Ship Yard in the manu-
facture of the material from which our big guns, armor plate, ships
and the material in them, were manufactured, and in his whole
personal experience he never met a single naval officer with whom
there was even the slightest suspicion of corruption or, in fact, of
anything but the highest motives. The same is true of our army
officers. . . . The criticism, then, which is being made of the Navy
as against the Army is one of system and method, and not of the
personnel.

The scheme of management in all of our na\7 yards has involved
the bringing on shore for from one to three years all naval officers,
and placing them not only in command of the navy yards as a whole,
but of placing the detailed management of each of the shops, and
even the sub-division of the shops, under naval officers who come
directly from sea duty. It is no reflection on these naval officers to
say that these men, who are admirably trained and suited to their

^ This paper never was published; Taylor deciding to withhold it because
in 1911 organized labor had embarked on its campaign against the introduction
of Scientific Management into government establishments, and he feared that
his paper only would exacerbate the controversy.

304 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

work on board battleships, are utterly untrained and unfit to manage
the industrial work which goes on in a navy yard. Any one of these
naval officers would recognize the complete unfitness of, we will
say, the best manager of a large machine shop to take command of
a battleship; and yet without hesitation these men, who have been
trained to the command of battleships, assume all of the responsibili-
ties of the manager of a machine shop. . . .

In many respects, also, the training which the naval officers receive
at sea largely unfits them to be at the head of an industrial establish-
ment. The kind of discipline which must be maintained on shipboard,
the methods which must be used there in directing the 800 or 1,000
men, are almost directly opposed to the methods which must be used
in the management of the men of a machine shop, for example.

And if these naval officers come to their jobs in the navy yards
knowing practically nothing about their work, they leave their jobs
in nine cases out of ten, after two or three years of service, with
almost no knowledge of industrial work. Shore duty is for them
an incident. Their real life's work and their ambitions and hopes
lie at sea; and very properly they look upon shore duty in most
cases chiefly as their opportunity to make the acquaintance of their
families and get in touch with the life of the country.

For all these reasons, while our navy yards have been in the past
officered and commanded, both in gross and detail, nominally by
naval officers, they have really been managed and run by civilian
foremen and quartermen, etc., who in our navy yards are distinctly
the cheap second, third and fourth class men. And it must be said
that it is next to impossible to get a really first-class foreman to ac-
cept service under naval officers.

These cheap civilians who are really in command of our navy yards
have no interest whatever in promoting efficiency. In fact, they
join with the workmen in the yard, and are universally backed up
in this by the labor unions, in trying to make employment for the
largest possible number of workmen, and in many cases they assist
the workmen in seeing to it that each man does a small day's work.

It will be remembered that one of the reforms effected
by Goodrich and Newberry upon the recommendation of

SERVING THE NAVY 305

Taylor was the concentrating at League Island, in Philadelphia,
of all the tool-making for the Atlantic yards. The organiza-
tion of this tool-making shop was directed by Hathaway. It
also was Goodrich's ambition to have Barth employed at the
Brooklyn Navy Yard, there to establish machine-shop stand-
ards for the entire service. With money taken from an
emergency fund, Barth actually was employed for a short
timej but though he demonstrated that with high-speed tools
and the slide rule the Brooklyn shop's machines could be made
to do four times the work, that is as far as the matter ever
was able to get.

Newberry's action in jumping at Goodrich's offer to make
suggestions for the betterment of navy yard conditions may
be attributed to the fact that in private life he was a manu-
facturer, and one of a progressive type. However, he had
not progressed far enough to gain any adequate conception
of what Taylor distinctively stood for in management. If
he quickly adopted Goodrich's first suggestions, these in the
main had to do only with the correction of evils that were
obvious to any fairly enlightened industrial executive. As
it was Goodrich's ambition to get the navy yards to practice
those methods which Taylor distinctively stood for, he neces-
sarily desired to have Newberry informed as to these methods.
Who as able to do this as Taylor himself? Thus, as a part of
Goodrich's patriotic plot, it was arranged that in December,
1908, Taylor should journey to Washington and see New-
berry. By this time Mr. Newberry had become the full
Secretary of the Navy. However, this second Roosevelt ad-
ministration was now drawing to a close — the previous
November William H. Taft had been elected to the Presi-
dency— and this circumstance, combined with the fact that,
having many other things on his mind, Newberry had for-
gotten most of what Goodrich had told him of Taylor,
operated to make things pretty unpleasant for Taylor.

3o6 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

I saw Mr. Newberry yesterday in Washington [he wrote to
Goodrich on December 17]. He appointed the hour of 9 o'clock as
a meeting time, but I only got in to see him at half-past eleven. I
found that it was not altogether clear in his mind as to just what I
had come for. He had forgotten whether I was an expert in ac-
counting or had to do with shop management. He then asked me
what I wanted, and I told him that I wanted nothing. [Imagine
Mr. Newberry's bewilderment upon hearing that a man had come to
Washington without wanting anything ! ] When he finally got
to an understanding of what it was that I had come there for,
he said that he did not think it would do any good to talk to him on
the subject of shop management, because between now and the time
that he retired there would not be any opportunity to put anything very
comprehensive into use, and that he had no idea as to who his successor
would be. . . .

With the exception of such physical changes as it is possible for you
to bring about between now and March 4th, it seems to me that you
are running the risk of having everything thrown out that you do in the
way of improvement in system.

Taylor's idea of what was likely to happen when Taft took
office was fully borne out by the event. But before we go
into this we must deal with a regular Taylor movement that,
in the second administration of Roosevelt, but entirely in-
dependently of the Goodrich-Newberry reform movement,
had sprung up in the Mare Island Navy Yard in far-away
California.

Though for a long time it seemed to Taylor that his paper
of 1903, Shcp Management y had little effect upon the in-
dustrial world in general, he was delighted to find, as the
years went by, that it had been exerting a powerful if quiet
influence in the most unexpected quarters ^ and among those
who, as it turned out, were most impressed were the young
and progressive officers of the navy's corps of constructors.

And here it is to be brought out that, on account of their
special engineering training and their continuous shore duty.

SERVING THE NAVY 307

these naval constructors as a body had been chafing for years
under the navy-yard system referred to by Taylor in his
" Government Efficiency " paper — that is, the system of
placing the yards, not only as a whole, but as regards the
detailed management of the shops, under the command of
line officers during the intervals between the periods when
these officers were serving at sea, or at some other duty such
as inspecting material and supervising recruiting.

Among the naval constructors who early were impressed
by Sho-p Management was Holden A. Evans. He tells us
that after reading this paper he felt as if scales had dropped
from his eyesj for the first time in inspecting work he
knew what to look for, and really saw. Becoming the con-
structor in charge at Mare Island in California, he appears,
with his unusual energy and determination, to have induced
the line officer in command of that yard to give him more
or less of a free hand. And among the other things he did
was to start in to practice Taylor principles. He was ham-
pered by the abnormally high price of California labor and
the dominance there of labor unions j but this, he says, was
entirely offset by the fact that he was 3,000 miles away from
Washington.

With the aid of the information he obtained from Shof
Management^ he had such success in increasing the output of
his shops that he was led to write and tell Taylor about it, and,
at the same time, ask for more information. This was in June,
1906. In responding, Taylor invited Evans to come to Phil-
adelphia and view the Tabor and Link-Belt installations.
Having to visit the East in the following autumn, Evans did
so. And if he returned to California with new enthusiasm
for Taylor principles and methods, he left behind him with
Taylor a most favorable impression, and this was confirmed
and strengthened by his work at Mare Island during the next
few years.

308 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

To establish at Mare Island a piece-rate system based on
the principle of high wages and low labor costs, Evans had,
by way of the commandant of the yard, to get the approval
of the chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair, then
Rear Admiral W. L. Capps. In his letter asking for this ap-
proval, he quoted freely from Shop Management. It at once
was revealed that Admiral Capps was warmly in sympathy with
the general principles for which Taylor stood j the evidence
is, in fact, that practically the whole construction corps, though
as individuals they might differ as to specific methods, took to
Taylor principles as a duck takes to water. And this was
particularly true of the young assistant constructors, many of
whom were led to practice these principles independently.

On the Pacific coast wood-calkers had been prohibited by
their union, under penalty of a fine of $20, from doing more
than 100 feet a day. At Mare Island they were doing from
80 to 100 feet, and earning from $4.50 to $5. Partly by tak-
ing drastic measures and partly through persuasion, Evans
got them to do from 380 to 400 feet a day year in and year
out, and increased their earnings to $7.50 and $8 a day. Com-
mon laborers on the Pacific coast were earning from $2 to
$2.50 a day. Laborers of this class who at Mare Island were
scaling ships (removing the rust with pneumatic hammers)
were doing from 50 to 60 square feet a day, and were paid
$2.40 a day. After Evans and his assistant, Mr. Henry, had
made a time study of this work, these laborers did from 180
to 210 square feet a day and earned from $3.30 to $3.80.
The lowest direct labor cost of retubing boilers at Mare
Island had been $1,200 per boiler. When this work was
" Taylorized," the cost per boiler was reduced to $400. Six
or seven sailmakers were brought to do the work that pre-
viously had taken thirty. Despite the fact that the general
wage-level on the Pacific coast was much higher than on the
Atlantic, Evans eventually reduced the general costs at Mare

SERVING THE NAVY 309

Island far below those of any eastern yard. Writing about
his success to Taylor, he said:

You readily understand that we have no Taylor system at this
Yard. I have, however, gotten a number of fundamental princi-
ples from my study of your writings and my talks with you. The
most important is to analyze work and find out what is to be done
and a better way of doing it.

Taylor's response to this, dated December 29, 1909, shows
his broad habit of distinguishing between principles and
methods:

I note that you state that you are not using our system of manage-
ment at the Mare Island Yard. Please allow me to take exception
to this statement. The essence of modern scientific management
consists in the application of certain broad general principles, and
the particular way in which these principles are applied is a matter
of entirely subordinate detail. I doubt whether any man in the
country has grasped the principles of modern scientific management
more completely than you have. This must be true, or you could not
have accomplished the results which you have. As you know, I
personally believe that certain methods of applying these general
principles are better than others, and therefore strongly recommend
the adoption of these particular details. This, however, I look upon
as entirely subordinate to the general principles, and among those
who have succeeded me in the business of introducing scientific
management, there is not one who uses the same methods in any two
successive establishments. The methods must in all cases be, to a
considerable extent, modified to suit the special conditions and needs
of each establishment.

Let us now return to the situation in the East as March 4,
1909, brought William H. Taft to the White House as the
successor of Theodore Roosevelt.

If Newberry, a business man, had hoped to remain Secre-
tary of the Navy under President Taft, he was disappointed.

310 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

To this office Taft appointed George von L. Meyer, Harvard
graduate, Massachusetts politician, wealthy gentleman of so-
cial aspirations, and under the administrations of Presidents
McKinley and Roosevelt successively Ambassador to Italy,
Ambassador to Russia, and Postmaster General.

Just before going out of office, Newberry had drawn up a
comprehensive plan of navy-yard organization. Based largely
on Goodrich-Taylor ideas, it contained some features for
which he was solely responsible, and among these was the
turning over of the management of the navy yards complete
to the corps of constructors. Having gained the ear of New-
berry, the constructors had convinced him as a business man
that they were logically the people to run the yards. At
this, line officers were aghast j and there developed as fierce
a controversy between line and staff as ever had been known
in the navy.

Inheriting this controversy, Meyer soon showed on which
side his sympathies lay. As was demonstrated later, he had,
in the familiar way of office holders, little or no use for any
of the plans of his predecessor j if the navy yards were to be
reorganized, it would be under a Meyer plan. Constructors
seldom or never could penetrate the coterie of line officers
whom he permitted to surround him. The previous exist-
ence of practically five separate industrial establishments in
every navy yard is to be explained by the fact that five navy
bureaus — Construction and Repair, Steam Engineering,
Ordnance, Equipment, and Yards and Docks — had been op-
erating in the navy yards practically independently of one
another. The consolidation of the separate industrial estab-
lishments had antagonized most of the chiefs of the bureaus
concerned, and these bureau chiefs found themselves once
more in the saddle under the Meyer administration. And
pressure also was brought to bear on Meyer by the political
and labor elements that had been antagonized by the elimlna-

SERVING THE NAVY 311

tion of soft jobs and abolition of sinecures under the Good-
rich-Newberry reforms.

Now, it was inevitable under the conditions here slcetched
that Taylor principles and methods should have become asso-
ciated, not only with the Newberry plan of navy-yard or-
ganization, but also with the ambitions of the corps of
constructors. If it was inevitable, it was none the less unfor-
tunate. For, as a navy man expressed it, the outcome was to
make Taylor principles and methods "the goat of service
politics." Goodrich planned to have Taylor convert Meyer.
Taylor was willing to undertake the taskj but an audience
with Meyer was denied him for several years.

In June, 1909, four months after Meyer took office, Ad-
miral Goodrich was, as he said, " abolished." Though dis-
appointed that his ambitions for the navy were not to be
immediately realized, he felt that some day his patriotic
efiForts would be appreciated, and as far as he personally was
concerned, he hauled down his flag and retired to the freedom
of civil life without regret. As he went, came the wrecking
of pretty nearly everything he and Newberry had planned.
Even the tool-making plant at League Island was destroyed
in the general smash.

In December, 1909, the " Meyer plan " of navy yard or-
ganization was promulgated. If under this plan there was
not exactly a return to the old " system " of five separate
industrial establishments, navy-yard manufacturing was divi-
ded between a Machinery Division and a Hull Division, with
still a third department, that of Yards and Docks, acting more
or less independently. It is a fact that under the Meyer plan
a ship in dock had to wait ten days for the service of a loco-
motive crane because the crane was found to be out of order,
and whereas it took only one day actually to do the work
of repair, it took nine days to deal with the red tape which
had to be unwound to get the work started.

312 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

For more than a year, Constructor Evans, being 3,000
miles away from Washington, escaped much attention. How-
ever, in the summer of 19 10 Evans was detached from Mare
Island and sent to superintend the construction of two sub-
marines at a private yard in Seattle, a job that kept him busy
for about half an hour a day. Then came to Mare Island
from Washington a party of six line officers to tear to shreds
about everything Evans had done there during three and a
half years to establish an efficient system. Under the regime
that followed it was forbidden to keep any labor records j the
running of the shops was turned back to the old union fore-
men who gave their orders by word of mouth. Only two
junior constructors were left at Mare Island j one to devote
his attention to the making of small boats, and the other to
the blacksmith shop.

On November 21, 19 10, when Evans still was at Seattle,
Taylor wrote him a sympathetic letter, and casually, as it
were, let fall this suggestion:

It has occurred to me that it might be possible for you to obtain
leave of absence from the Navy Department, say for a year or more,
without pay, during which time you might come east and make a
further study of scientific management and also of the best steps
to take in introducing it, etc. When the time comes for your leave
of absence to expire, you might do one of two things; go back into
the Construction Corps even better equipped than you now are to
introduce scientific management in the Navy Yards when the proper
opportunity comes; or, if you prefer it, there would very likely be
an excellent opportunity for you to take up the introduction of
scientific management as a profession.

I know of no one who would seem to me to start with a better
equipment than you have for this work, and there appears to be a
large demand for men who are able to do this. I am of the opinion,
also, that the demand for competent men in this field will increase
in the next few years, rather than diminish.

SERVING THE NAVY 313

Now, as to the financial side of this. As you know, my dear old
father died this summer, and this gives me quite a considerable ad-
dition to my income. I propose devoting all of this money to for-
warding the cause of scientific management, and I know of no
way in which I can do more for it than by helping to give competent
men like yourself practical experience in this field. I therefore will
make you the offer to pay you the same salary that you are receiving
in the Navy, during the time that you are making your necessary
studies and having your experience in this line. I do not know, of
course, whether any such project as this is a practical one, but hope
that it may be so, and also that the idea may seem to you to be a good

Immediately upon receipt of this, Evans telegraphed:
" Words cannot express my appreciation of the offer con-
tained in your letter. Your patriotism and devotion to duty
will be beyond the comprehension of many men. I shall
apply for leave to begin March i." This telegram he fol-
lowed up with a letter in which he thanked Taylor from the
bottom of his heart. Writing to Rear Admiral R. M. Watt,
who now had become Chief Constructor, he said:

The proposition which Mr. Taylor has made is astounding. I
have a good deal of faith in human nature, but I must say that I
never expected to have such an experience as this. It makes one feel
that the trials which are experienced are infinitesimal. ... I know
that you will realize the wonderful opportunity which he gives me
to do work that is worth while for the Navy and the country. Please
do what you can to have my request [for leave of absence without
pay] approved as soon as possible.

To Secretary Meyer, Evans wrote:

I have devoted the best part of my life to the work of the Navy.
It has always been my purpose to resign from the Navy in sufficient
time to enable me to provide adequately for my family. I shall,
however, not do this until I feel that I have accomplished a little more

314 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

than my share in the work of the Navy. I am therefore willing
to bind myself to serve at least two years in the Navy after the ex-
piration of the leave which I now request, and if by any possibility
my services should be required for a longer period I shall willingly
remain.

I doubt if in the history of the Navy such an opportunity has been
presented to a naval officer to acquire information and experience
which will be of material benefit to the Navy. There is expended in
the Navy Yards of the United States something over $40,000,000
each year. By efficient industrial management these expenditures
can be greatly reduced, and it is the work of the Navy to see that
the country has the most economical administration that is possible in
these industrial yards.

Evans's immediate superior, Admiral Watt, was delighted
that Evans's ability had been recognized by Taylor, and he
recommended to Secretary Meyer that this application for
leave be approved. But on December 9, 19 10, Evans re-
ceived from Meyer this short and sweet communication:

Referring to your letter of November 29, 19 10, requesting one
year's leave of absence to be spent in the study of scientific shop
management, you are informed that your request is disapproved,
as it is not the present policy of the Department to give officers
extended leave of absence.

As was his legal privilege, Evans, on December 15, ap-
pealed from this action of Secretary Meyer to President Taft.
In his letter to the President, he in manly fashion opened his
heart J telling the President among other things that it would
be an " easy matter for a man skilled in industrial methods
and management to devise a system whereby $12,000,000 a
year can be saved in the Navy Yards." But on January 5,
191 1, Taft wrote to Meyer concurring in the refusal to grant
Evans's request. How Meyer had represented the situation,
we may gather from Taft's letter.

SERVING THE NAVY 315

Were you [said the President] to yield to the personal pre-
dilections of every naval constructor as to the best method to be
pursued and studied, you would find yourself very much embarrassed
by diverse counsel and theories.

Upon receiving a copy of the President's letter, Evans
started in to move heaven and earth. Previously he had
asked Taylor to see the President j now he wrote to his Con-
gressman, and prepared articles for the press. If he was in-
discreet, it was the indiscretion of a natural-born fighter and
of a big-hearted man who has been deeply stirred and
wounded.

All along Taylor had kept in the background as much as
possible. He deprecated to his followers among navy men
any use by them of the term " Taylor System." Beginning
in 1 9 10, he recommended that they use the term "scientific
management " exclusively. And he had considered it useless
to expect President Taft to reverse any action taken by one
of his cabinet. However, when Evans's request that he see
the President was reinforced by an appeal from Admiral
Watt, the Chief Constructor, he decided to make the attempt.
He did not get to see Taft until January 11, 191 1, which
was six days after the President had denied Evans's appeal.
Here is the account of his interview with Taft that he wrote
the next day to Admiral Watt:

I am sorry to say that I met with very scant success in my in-
terview with the President. I do not think that it lasted all told
more than a minute. He had at first forgotten all about the subject,
and when I finally reminded him about Mr. Evans he said the
whole matter had been settled.

He then seemed to remember a good deal more about the matter,
and said that it would of course be impossible for him to take any
action contrary to the wishes of the Secretary, and that while he
had heard of our system of management from many quarters, he of

3i6 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

course could not have much interest in a system that was in opposition
to the views of the Secretary of the Navy.

I then told him that our system was in no sense in opposition to
any work that was being done in the direction of improvement;
that our system was a constructive system, not a destructive one.
He then said, " Well, you had better explain all this to the Secretary
of the Navy," and wrote me the following letter of introduction,
which, however, I did not present, and I doubt whether I shall pre-
sent it at all, since the President has put me in the position of wish-
ing to defend our system to the Secretary of the Navy, and I have
no such desire:

"January ii, 191 1.
" My dear Mr. Secretary:

This is Mr. Taylor, the inventor of the Taylor method of shop
management. Won't you see Mr. Taylor, who is anxious to secure
for his method full consideration in the Navy Department, and talk
it over with him or have some of your experts do so?

" Sincerely yours,

(Signed) Wm. H. Taft."

I am still debating, however, whether, out of respect to the
President, I ought to see Meyer. This is the only reason which
would lead me to do so. What would be your judgment as to the
wisdom of this?

If I were to see Meyer, I should probably be led into telling him
some home truths, which would very likely be a detriment, rather
than a help, to the cause of efficiency in the Navy.

The letter of the President was brought to his private secretary,
Mr. Charles D. Norton, and he at once seemed to recognize the
false position in which I had been placed, so he asked me to see him
at length.

Writing a few days later to Evans, Taylor had this to say
about his talk with Norton:

I told Norton perfectly plainly that the essence of the Meyer plan
and the Meyer policy lay in declaring everything which Newberry

SERVING THE NAVY 317

had done to be " mud," and in deliberately reversing every policy
inaugurated by Newberry.

I also called Norton's attention to the fact that the President was
sustaining Meyer in throwing out our system of management, while
at the same time he was helping as fast as possible to introduce the
same system into the Ordnance shops of the Army.

When Norton heard that our system was being used by Crozier,
he became very greatly interested, because, as he said at once, the
Ordnance Department shops represent the only economically run
Department in the Government service.

I captured Norton to such an extent that he ordered the men
over to see me who are introducing cost system in Washington, and
I am just in receipt of a letter from him to-day, stating that as
soon as an opportunity offers he is coming over to Philadelphia to
look into our system of management.

Some good, then, may come from my visit to Washington, after
all. My impression is that Secretary Norton is the one man around
the President who is genuinely interested in more economical man-
agement of the Departments.

His talk with the President's private secretary was the one
bright spot in his trip to Washington. He was disgusted by
what he learned of the " economy " policy under Mr. Taft.
All hands were shouting for economy, but nothing was being
done for it. " None of them," wrote Taylor, " seems to re-
alize the farce of the whole thing; that you can't introduce
economical methods by sitting up and howling."

It is not to be supposed that all the navy's line officers were
opposed to Taylor principles and methods. One of them,
Lieutenant W. B. Tardy, developed an ambition to introduce
them on a battleship, and to qualify himself for the task
spent two months of the summer of 19 10 at the Tabor plant.
Secretary Meyer raised no objection to this. " Why? "
asked Taylor in a letter to Admiral Goodrich. " Because it
never occurred to Newberry to introduce our system in the
actual management of a battleship." When this was added

31 8 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

to the course of the Taft administration in throwing Scientific
Management out of the navy's shops and introducing them
into the army's, it made, said Taylor, " the incongruity of the
whole matter laughable."

He felt it was hard indeed that Scientific Management
should in the navy be made the goat of service politics. He
had many good friends, besides Goodrich, among line ofiicers.
He deprecated the controversy between line and staff, and
considered that Newberry's course in turning the management
of the navy yards completely over to the constructors had,
from the point of view of policy, been a mistake. What he
stood for was the organization for the navy yards of a per-
manent corps of managers, regardless of the branch of the
service from which ofiicers for this corps were recruited.

I note [he wrote to Evans in December, 1910] that Mr. Henry
states that I am not in favor of the Naval Constructors. I think
there can be no worse policy than that of saying that all the good
in the service rests either in the Naval Constructors or in the Line.
When it comes to the question of management, I have no doubt that
there are some men now in the line who would make the finest kind
of material for managers; and if it were possible to induce men of
this special abih'ty to come into a permanent corps, it would be an
admirable thing for the Navy.

If this is what Mr. Henry means by not being a partisan of the
constructors, he is entirely right. On the other hand, I believe that
the great majority of good managers will come from the Con-
structors Corps, chiefly because of their special education and their
shore training and ambitions.

Though he tried to keep out of this fight, he was unable
to blink the fact that the line was almost solidly against his
principles and methods. It was Evans's opinion that the
explanation of the opposition of the line could be found in
these words of Gantt's: " Among the obstacles to the introduc-

SERVING THE NAVY 319

tion of this system is the fact that it forces everybody to do
his duty. Many people in authority want a systenn that will
force everybody else to do his duty but will allow them to do
as they please." '

I am fully in accord with you [Taylor replied to Evans] that
with line officers coming and going, economic management in the
Navy Yards will always be impossible. I also agree with you en-
tirely that the line officers care comparatively little about economic
administration in the yards; and as I have said over and over again,
they are there chiefly because they have comfortable quarters and a
more or less dignified position, with no duties which worry them in
any way. They are there for a rest and to have a good time with
their families while they are on shore, and I must say that I can
hardly blame them much for this.

And here is their delicious bit from a letter written by him
in May, 191 1, to Gantt:

It is difficult for you and me to understand the extent to which
the simplest kind of industrial machinery and processes is a complete
mystery and a sealed book to the average well-educated man. Such,
for instance, as a good naval officer. If they get to have a speaking
acquaintance with the machines and processes under them in the
two years in which they are in the yard, they are lucky men.

As an instance, very much to the point, you will remember that
the Commandant of the Portsmouth Yard, who had been there a
year and a half, I believe, recently took Secretary Meyer into the
smith shop, and was explaining there the details of certain additions
authorized by the Department in Washington. Meyer and the Com-
mandant talked about these additions very intelligently for quite a
long time, when one of the younger men who was present informed
them that they had mistaken the shop which they were in; that they
supposed they were in a foundry, to which the alteration was to be
made, but they were really in the smith shop.

That he did not admire Secretary Meyer, Taylor never
made any attempt to conceal. But no one understood better

320 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

than he that Meyer's inability to cope with industrial problems
was no disgrace to that gentleman, since there had been noth-
ing in his experience to prepare him for such problems. And
Taylor also was fully aware that most of the men surround-
ing Meyer had all along been doing their best to discredit
his (Taylor's) workj that Meyer continually was hearing
reports that, notably at such private shipyards as Cramp's, the
Taylor System had been tried and thrown out.

In the latter part of 1910, or less than a year after it had
gone into effect, severe criticisms of the " Meyer plan " of
navy yard organization appeared in such publications as The
Marine Review. Line officers themselves were dissatisfied
with it. And rumors became frequent that, unless the Navy
Department did something about it, there would be an in-
vestigation by Congress. Then in this latter part of 19 10
came the railway-rate hearings of the Interstate Commerce
Commission at which Louis D. Brandeis gave wide-spread
publicity to the phrase " scientific management," and Har-
rington Emerscn made his sensational statement that the
railways, through the adoption of such a system, could save
a million dollars a day. In November and December, 19 10,
and on into 191 1, a regular flood of articles on this subject
appeared in general as well as industrial and technical pub-
lications.

Early in 191 1, or soon after Evans's request for a leave of
absence had been denied, Secretary Meyer suddenly began to
take an interest in this subject. A statement was authorized
by him that he would appoint a committee to report on a
plan for introducing " scientific management " into the navy
yards. From the start it was settled that H. L. Gantt, Charles
Day, and Harrington Emerson were to be members of this
committee. Not only Gantt but Day had been intimately
associated with Taylor j Day having for a partner in his Phil-
adelphia engineering firm a son of James M. Dodge. Rumor

SERVING THE NAVY 321

also had it that Taylor himself was to be asked to serve on
this committee. In March, 191 1, Secretary Meyer's aid,
Commander Philip Andrews, went to Boxly to see Taylor.
It had been settled that Gantt, Day, and Emerson were to be
Secretary Meyer's guests at the target practice of the Atlantic
fleet to take place early in April, and Commander Andrews,
upon his return to Washington, wrote Taylor that Meyer
would like to have him join the party. It is to be understood
that up to this time Taylor and Meyer had not met, Taylor
having decided not to present to Meyer the letter given him
by Taft.

Now, for the fact that Taylor hated the ordinary politician
there is a ready explanation. He acted in accordance with
facts and principles derived from facts, and thus his course
had steadiness and stability. The ordinary politician acts in
accordance with rumors, and " sentiment," and votes, and
thus he trims and shifts. Taylor could be politic himself
when occasion required 5 but where he drew the line was at
any pretence that he was what he was not, or that he believed
what he did not. And on March 27 he wrote to Gantt:

I am glad to hear that you had a satisfactory interview with Cap-
tain Andrews. I took the greatest care to show him the exact
feelings which I have in regard to the present bitter fight between
the h'ne and the constructors. I told him that I had no sympathy
with either side in the row, that any such fight as this could only result
in injury to the navy. I also told him, however, that the only hope
for introducing the principles of scientific management in the navy
lay in establishing a permanent managing corps, to run the shops in the
navy yards.

Now, I shall be very glad to help you and Charlie Day in every
way that I can in the matter, but on one condition only, namely,
that in any report that is made we shall make it perfectly clear that
nothing in the nature of efficient management can be introduced
in the navy until a permanent managing corps is appointed.

322 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

We should of course be as far as possible from recommending
that this corps should consist of naval constructors only. Leave it
up to Congress and the Navy Department to say how^ this permanent
corps shall be named.

I shall absolutely decline to go on any commission which owes any
personal fealty to Meyer. If I go on any commission, it will be
as an absolutely independent man, for the best interests of the Navy,
and free to recommend whatever I believe to be right.

Eventually Taylor saw his way clear to join Secretary
Meyer's target-practice party. When this party sailed from
the Washington Navy Yard on April 2, it was divided into
two sections J one on the President's yacht Mayflower, and
the other on the Dolphin. The Mayflower section was con-
fined to men interested in management, and with these men
went Secretary Meyer and his aid.

Before dinner on the first day out Taylor had a long talk
with the Secretary alone. He made it perfectly plain that he
was interested, not in Meyer's administration, but solely in
the navy itself. He went over the ground that he previously
had gone over with Commander Andrews, to make it em-
phatic that he stood like a rock for the principle of a perma-
nent corps of navy yard managers. He explained at length
the principles of Scientific Management. He put in a good
word for his friend Admiral Goodrich j pointing out that
Newberry had been solely responsible for the plan of turning
the whole management of the navy yards over to the construc-
tors. And he also defended his friend, Constructor Evans.

I had a long talk with Mr. Meyer [he later wrote Evans] about
what you had accomplished in naval organization. I told him that
yours was the only fine instance of management which had yet been
introduced in the navy yards, and also explained to him the ruthless
way in which your work had been decimated; and I told him that if
he had been in your place he would have fought even harder than

SERVING THE NAVY 323

you have fought against the destruction of your work; and that for
my part I admired any insubordination which you might have shown.

On the second day out, Meyer and his aid decided to return
with the Mayflower, which had become crippled. The man-
agement men then were transferred to the Dolphin; and a
little later, while a heavy sea was on, to the battleship Minne-
sota. If it was an ordeal for all the landlubbers, it was espe-
cially so for Taylor. Always a victim of qualms when the
deep was bounding, he on this trip also suffered much
from insomnia J midnight hours often found him walking
the deck. The party was out for about a week. While not
insensible to the spectacular features of the target practice,
Taylor was chiefly interested in the details of the work of
loading, pointing, and firing the big guns, and thus, for the
most part, stationed himself inside one of the turrets.

Later, in writing about this trip to Admiral Watt, he said:
" It was one of the most interesting of my life, and we saw
one of the finest examples of scientific management in the
running of your gun turrets." Always desirous of praising,
and blaming only when he could not avoid it, he repeated this
statement to others. However, he was indignant when a line
officer, in an article reprinted in The Army and Navy Jour-
naly quoted him as saying that " more work and more efficient
work per capita of the highest rank to the lowest rank was
accomplished aboard the U. S. battleship than in any other
known place where labor is employed." To a gentleman
who, in February, 19 14, called his attention to this statement,
he wrote:

I never made any such statement attributed to me by Admiral
William W. Kimball.

In my observation work done on the battleships my conclusions were
that the firing of our large guns represented a very fine piece of well
thought out and well planned work, and on one of the ships that I

324 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

visited there was also fine work in firing in the engine room. I think
I may say that these two types of work were the only operations
which took place on shipboard which impressed me as being efficient.
The other operations, generally speaking, impressed me as being ex-
ceedingly inefficient, and needed, as much as anything I have seen,
the application of the principles of Scientific Management.

I wish in no way to detract from the fine work done at sea by the
naval officers. They are a fine body of men, devoted to their work
and energetic, but from the very nature of their occupation they be-
come accustomed to seeing seamen and (in times of peace) the over-
manned personnel of the boat doing nothing, or next to nothing,
during the greater part of the day. It is out of the question in this
atmosphere to develop, generally speaking, a high state of efficiency.

Here it may be said that a line officer, Commander Allen
M. Cook, inspired by Taylor's writings, made great progress
in introducing the principles of Scientific Management on a
battleships but although there was here no labor union to
influence the Department against him, he became so discour-
aged by the lack of appreciation shown by the Department
that in 19 13 he resigned from the service.

The committee to report on a scientific system of manage-
ment for the navy yards was, as finally composed, limited to
Gantt, Day, and Emerson. While it was investigating, Tay-
lor heard occasionally from Meyer. The Secretary, in fact,
went to Boxly on May 3, 191 1, and stayed there over night.
A little later in May he wrote to Taylor asking him to outline
a " suitable course of study and practical work in Scientific
Management for the midshipmen at the Naval Academy,"
and Taylor did so. However, nothing ever came of it.
And nothing came of the work of the Gantt-Day-Emerson
committee. If there may be some question as to the sincerity
of the interest Meyer seemed to take in Scientific Manage-
ment, the evidence would appear to be that, while he was
brought by Taylor to a state of being almost persuaded, the

REAR ADMIRAL CASPAR F. GOODRICH

MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM CROZIER

SERVING THE NAVY 325

influence of the navy's line and of the labor leaders who were
now openly on the warpath against all things Taylor, was too
much for him. Meyer, again, might well have been confused
by the various brands of " scientific management " then being
offered, and there also is the fact that men who enjoyed a
newspaper and magazine reputation as efficiency experts and
scientific managers, and professed to be friends of Taylor's,
were covertly doing what they could to discredit Taylor and
his work.

In October, 191 1, it was announced by Secretary Meyer
that the navy would not use in its yards any of the scientific
systems of management advocated in this country, but would
import from England the " Vickers system," or the one used
by the firm of Vickers, Limited, at its engine and ord-
nance works. Just what this system was we need not in-
quire. It is sufficient to say that when Taylor made his high-
speed steel discovery, it led this Vickers Company to send
four men over to Bethlehem, and that during the two or three
weeks they were there Taylor enlightened them as much as
he could as to the system of management needed to take the
best advantage of high-speed steel.

Secretary Meyer's announcement included this statement:
" That the system may be thoroughly instituted. Captains
A. B. Willits and E. Theiss, U. S. N., have been sent to Eng-
land to study the details of the Vickers system. These officers
left last Thursday and will be gone about a month." The
naivete of this amused Taylor greatly. He wondered if a
month would be long enough for the captains to gather the
system together so that they might " bring it back with them
in their trunks."

It was Taylor's belief that the announcement about the
" Vickers system " simply was a " tactical move in the game
of navy politics." It is certain that very little system, Vickers
or other, ever was introduced into the navy yards, so far as

326 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

orders from Washington were concerned, and that the " Meyer
plan " of divided responsibility remained.

All Taylor did to get the navy to appreciate and take
advantage of the exceptional ability of Constructor Evans
also was doomed to fail. For a time Meyer seemed influenced.
In the spring of 191 1 Evans was brought from the Pacific
coast and placed in charge of inspection work at the Bath Iron
Works in Maine- The following October, Meyer asked him
if he would undertake the work of introducing " modern man-
agement " at the Norfolk Navy Yard. Evans said he would,
provided he could work there without interference. This was
agreed to, and on October 14 he reported at Norfolk. In the
written instructions that were sent to the commandant of that
yard. Secretary Meyer carried out his agreement that Evans
was to have practically a free hand. The commandant at
once made it plain to Evans that he was not in sympathy with
these instructions, and four days later came an order from
Secretary Meyer cancelling the instructions. This was for
Evans the final blow. He promptly resigned from the navy.
Within a few years after he took up private work he rose to
be the general manager of the Baltimore Dry Docks and Ship
Building Company, and at this writing is one of the leading
figures in that city's commercial life.

On March 4, 191 3, began the administration of President
Woodrow Wilson, with Josephus Daniels the Secretary of
the Navy, and Franklin D. Roosevelt the Assistant Secretary.
For a time Taylor thought he might influence Daniels and
Roosevelt in behalf of at least better management for the
navy yards. He took some tentative steps in this direction,
but soon came to the conclusion that it was useless to expect
the gentlemen in question to favor anything which organized
labor opposed. He early prophesied, in fact, that the whole
Wilson administration would be dominated by organized
labor.

SERVING THE NAVY 327

Many were the young assistant constructors who, ambitious
of better things for the navy yards, entered into correspond-
ence with Taylor and went to Boxly to have him impart to
them knowledge and inspiration. Not all the heroes are war-
riors. Worthy of tribute are those young men who, without
hope of public applause, struggled with courage and devotion
against great odds to bring into the navy yards system and
order and progress. Almost as fast as their work was set up,
it was knocked down. Often they were subjected to petty
persecution. Regular hunts were organized to find their work
and destroy it. For the most part they waited until the
Meyer regime had passed, only to be led to believe that un-
der Daniels there still would be nothing to strive for. So
to the nation's service were lost many able and progressive
young men, with their expensive education received at the
nation's academy at Annapolis.

But the picture is not altogether dark. No honest effort
can be quite in vain. Taylor standards, having been once
raised in the navy yards, could not thereafter be entirely ig-
nored. Every reason there was to believe when the material
was being gathered for his biography, that the Taylor spirit
still was alive in the navy yards as elsewhere.

CHAPTER XII

SERVING THE ARMY

AFTER Taylor, in his " Government Efficiency "
paper of 191 1, had pictured the conditions militat-
ing against the navy's doing efficient engineering
and manufacturing work, he went on to say:

The Ordnance Department of the army, on the other hand, pre-
sents a totally different object lesson. In this department, the officers
are selected from the line of the army by competitive examination,
and they enter this department expecting to devote their lives to
industrial problems rather than to military ones; that is, to the scien-
tific study of the design and manufacture of the implements of w^ar,
which becomes mainly an industrial problem. Thus the mental at-
titude of these officers differs entirely from that of the navy officers.
Their ambitions lie toward promoting efficiency in manufacture.

The present organization of this department offers an ideal op-
portunity for the selection and development of men well suited to
their work. At the end of every three or four years the young officers
are obliged to go back to the line of the army for a year's work,
and unless they have made good in their work as manufacturers or
designers they are not again taken into the Ordnance Dapartment.
And on the other hand, if they themselves find that they are unfitted
for work of this character, they can voluntarily return to the line.
This insures the gradual selection of men especially suited to manu-
facturing duties, and this primarily accounts for the fact that the
work of the Ordnance Department, with General Crozier at its head,
represents the only case in which government shops are able to suc-
cessfully compete with corresponding nianufa,cturing companies in
civil life.

328

SERVING THE ARMY 329

The first ordnance ofHcer to attempt the practice of Taylor
principles and methods was Major F. E. Hobbs. Stationed
as an inspector at Midvale in the i88o*s, he witnessed the
early development of the Taylor System. So impressed was
he by what Taylor accomplished at Midvale that he followed
Taylor's later career with intense interest, and as he said, fell
into the habit of " preaching the Taylor System in season and
out of season." Becoming the commanding officer of the
arsenal at Rock Island, Illinois, in 1908, he on his own re-
sponsibility attempted to establish piece rates there in accord-
ance with standards determined by time studies. Some of the
workmen objected and appealed to their Congressman.
Thus political pressure was, through the Secretary of War,
brought to bear on General William Crozier, Chief of Ord-
nance. The Presidential campaign of 1908 was then in full
swing, and General Crozier thought it just as well to suspend
such efforts as Major Hobbs had been making until this cam-
paign was over.

But by this time General Crozier, who had been to some
extent acquainted with Taylor and his work for several years,
was himself almost ready to take up the Taylor System.

In December, 1906, Taylor, as president of the A. S.
M. E., had headed a party from that society which had been
invited to visit the army's proving ground at Sandy Hook,
New Jersey. To all the officers he met there he sent copies
of his various papers on management, and among these officers
was General Crozier.

I have no doubt [Taylor wrote Crozier] that you will say, when
you receive the several pamphlets on shop management that I am
sending you, " There goes Taylor riding his old hobby." However,
I feel sure that in our type of management we are on the right track,
and it would give me the greatest pleasure if you personally could
spare half a day to come to Philadelphia to actually see what we are
doing.

330 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

In replying, Crozier said:

I feel that the opportunity which you offer to myself and the
officers of the Ordnance Department to become familiar with the
principles and practice of your method of shop management ought not
to be neglected. There are five large manufacturing establishments
in the Ordnance Department, at Watertown, Watervliet, Springfield,
Frankford, and Rock Island. At two of these, namely, Springfield
and Frankford, the piece work system prevails; at Rock Island we
have both the piece work system and the day wages system, while
at Watertown and Watervliet no one is paid in accordance with
the piece work system.

Although I recognize some of the disadvantages of the piece
work system, I think that, by long experience and many discussions,
we have arrived at the three establishments where it is used at a fairly
satisfactory operation of this system. But as the work at Water-
town and Watervliet is to a very little extent of the duplicating
character we cannot be said to have at either of those places anything
better than the old time method of daily wages, with prospect of
promotion by selection, and the occasional discharge of the poorest,
to stimulate workmen to do at least a fair proportion of what they
should be able to do.

Crozier went on to suggest that, in addition to himself,
the commanding officers of the Watertown and Watervliet
arsenals visit Taylor. However, in this month of December,
1906, Crozier had to go to Cuba, and upon his return he could
not find time for the Philadelphia trip. Taylor saw him
a little later in W^ashington, but the main result of his talk
was to convince the General that the Taylor System was a
subject which could not be investigated and mastered quickly.
Probably no man was less inclined to leap before he looked
than William Crozier. He must needs grasp the whole
philosophy of the Taylor System, as well as consider what
trouble it was likely to lead him into. He considered the
thing as much from the viewpoint of the workmen at the

SERVING THE ARMY 331

arsenals as from that of the management. And here it is to
be brought out that, however much he might believe that
labor unions were commonly misguided, he was then, as later,
a firm believer in the labor-union principle.

I approve of the organization of labor [he said in an address de-
h'vered in 19 15]. I do not think that, in our imperfect human re-
lations, anyone is in a position to secure for himself consideration,
or even justice, unless he has some power. For persons of small
individual influence, such as the great class of employees in general,
the only way in which power can be secured is through combination,
by organization for common action; and if I belonged to that class I
would surely join such an organization.

In 1908 he still was weighing the subject of the Taylor
System. Then, while the Presidential campaign of that year
was on, came the unpleasant experience of Major Hobbs at
Rock Island. Writing to Taylor in February, 1909, Crozier

said:

I suspended Hobbs' efforts pending the closing of the campaign, and
I have not yet directed him to resume them as I had hoped that I
might obtain from you, or from one of your pupils, some informa-
tion as to how the situation might be met without antagonizing any-
body. Hobbs is perfectly right in feeling the necessity for accurate
information [to help him set piece rates], and if there were no other
way of getting it I would start in on a fight with his opponents.
But a fight is apt to be expensive, and I think it ought to be possible
to attain our project without one.

And the General added:

I shall hope to commence doing something practical as soon as the
passage of the appropriation bill shall inform us what our condition
in the way of funds for the coming year may be.

The explanation of this last paragraph is that a month be-
fore, or in January, 1909, Crozier at length had been able

332 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

to make his promised visit to Boxly and to the Tabor and
Link-Belt plants. How cautious the General was may be
gathered from his use of the word " seems " in this paragraph
from a letter written by him to Taylor after his Philadelphia
visit:

I appreciate very highly your disinterested devotion of your time
to what seems to be simply a high-minded effort to increase the effi-
ciency of the manufacturing world, and particularly that of the
Government.

By mail Crozier continued to ply Taylor for more informa-
tion, and he also got the Tabor and Link-Belt people to write
him in detail about their experiences with time study. But
we shall see that his caution in embarking on a new enterprise
such as this was fully equalled by the firmness with which
he stuck to it, once he had embarked on it.

Now, neither General Crozier nor any other ordnance offi-
cer had much fear of a strike at any of the arsenals. It was
believed that the workmen at these government establish-
ments thought too highly of their jobs to run much risk of
losing them. Few men, however, better understood the
Washington game than the General j he knew how difficult
it was for a Congressman from a district where there were
many government employees to withstand any pressure they
might bring to bear on him, and he knew the abject terror
members of Congress have of any organized movement, be
it of workmen or of lady reformers. And he naturally de-
sired to maintain his exceptional record for getting on well
both with Congress and with Secretaries of War as they came
and went.

It was represented by Taylor that the introduction of his
system was not likely to stir up any trouble among the work-
men at any of the arsenals, if the right methods were em-
ployed in introducing it. The trouble Major Hobbs had had

SERVING THE ARMY 333

at Rock Island could be explained by the fact that he had
started in to make time studies without adequately preparing
the men for them. As a matter of fact, before any time
studies were made, or any other work done that would di-
rectly aflFect the men, one or two years should be spent in
standardizing conditions pertaining to machinery, small tools,
materials, etc., and this work would of itself serve to get
the men accustomed to changes.^

Impressed by these statements, Crozier resolved to make
a beginning with and test of the Taylor System at the Water-
town Arsenal, situated near Boston. This was one of the
arsenals referred to by him in his early letter to Taylor as
having little work of a repetitive nature, and therefore rely-
ing entirely upon the day-work wage method. The principal
manufactures at Watertown were seacoast-gun carriages, large
structures with hundreds of parts. About 400 workmen were
employed there.

Of course Crozier had not failed to consult the command-
ing officer at Watertown, then Colonel C. B. Wheeler. In
the Colonel's attitude there was no ambiguity. Writing in
January, 1909, to General Crozier, he said: "The adoption
of Mr. Taylor's system by the department and its introduc-
tion at this arsenal, where the necessity for it is most urgent,
would mark one of the greatest strides in advance in recent
years." So many of these ordnance officers having been sta-
tioned as inspectors at Midvale and Bethlehem, none were in
a better position to judge impartially of Taylor's principles
and methods than theyj and it is indeed significant that as a
body they, if anything, had even more enthusiasm for
these principles and methods than did the naval constructors.
That they might fully acquaint themselves with the Taylor
System as it had been developed up to that date, many of
them, including Colonel Wheeler, were sent to Boxly. Gtn-

^ A basic principle of Taylor's technic of installation.

334 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

eral Crozier's fear that in this he was imposing upon Taylor
drew from him this characteristic reply:

Let me assure you that I shall be most pleased to see any of your
assistants, young or old, who are really interested in the subject, at
any time. The people whom I do not care to see are those who are
sent here entirely against their own will, and who come determined
to learn nothing about the system, and for the purpose of roasting it,
without understanding it. A day or so ago one of the captains in
the navy was sent here from the New York Yard. He evidently
came entirely against his will, and he spent his whole time not in trying
to understand what we were doing, but in combating everything that
we said and everything that he saw, without even knowing what it
was all about. For this type of man, of course, I have no time, but
for anyone, even those who are honestly and earnestly opposed to our
scheme of management, providing they have ordinary intelligence, I
have any amount of time.

After he and Barth had visited the Watertown Arsenal in
April, 1909, Taylor wrote to Crozier:

The nature of the work there is such as to require almost the
highest type of management, because the variety is so great that no
workman can be kept for any great length of time making the same
piece over and over again. In fact, the Watertown Arsenal should be
classed, from the management standpoint, as an engineering establish-
ment, rather than a manufacturing establishment.

As you of course appreciate, a shop which manufactures engineering
work requires a far more elaborate scheme of routing, that is, a scheme
for moving the parts from place to place in their proper order, as well
as a far higher order of foremanship, than the manufacturing estab-
lishment. For this reason, our system of management, if applied at
the Watertown Arsenal, ought to produce better and larger results
than if applied to the arsenals in which manufacturing is chiefly done.

It manifestly being impracticable to have a competitive
examination of Taylor System experts, General Crozier, in

SERVING THE ARMY 335

order to employ Barth, had through the Secretary of War
to apply to President Taft for a special order waiving the
civil service regulations. Though at this time upholding the
Navy Department in its crusade against the Taylor System,
Taft promptly issued the order permitting the employment
by the army of the leading Taylor expert. The explanation
of course is that in each case Taft left the whole thing to the
head of the department.

Barth began his services at Watertown in June, 1909. Al-
though he accepted the responsibility of taking the initiative
in many cases, his task there primarily was not that of intro-
ducing the Taylor System himself, but of instructing and
counselling the responsible heads of the arsenal in this intro-
ductory work. At first he gave the arsenal ten days a month,
and later four days.

Neither Barth nor Taylor was entirely happy in this gov-
ernment work. Both chafed not a little under what they
felt was the wooden nature of its restrictions. And though
Taylor got great enjoyment out of his social relations with
the ordnance officers he met, and highly esteemed them for
their incorruptibility, devotion to duty, and justness, he was
wont to complain of the " damned dignity " which they
seemed to think it necessary to carry into their work as man-
agers. Nevertheless, this was an installation of the Taylor
System where there was little or no trouble with anyone in
the management, and from the start good progress was made.
Certainly the progress was satisfactory to Crozier. In a re-
port he made to the Secretary of War towards the close of
191 1, he gave one of the best brief descriptions of the work-
ings of the Taylor System we ever have read.

Mr. Earth's principal service [said Crozier] has been the systemiza-
tion of the general processes of manufacture. Under his guidance
we have systematized the method of putting work into the shops, so
that orders for manufacture now go from the office to the shops with

336 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

a much more complete arrangement and supply than formerly of draw-
ings, specifications, lists of parts, bills of material, and orders relating
to particular parts of the structure to be produced, so that the fore-
men are relieved from much of the semiclerical and other office work
which they used to have to do, and for which they are not well qual-
ified and cannot attend to without a neglect of other more appropriate
duties.

We have systematized the work of planning the course of compo-
nent parts of the structures to be manufactured through the shops of
the arsenal, so that this course shall be regular and orderly, and the
work shall at no time be held through the lack of some component
which is not at hand when needed, and that no wasteful effects shall
arise through congestion of work at particular machines, or the idle-
ness of other machines or workmen. . . .

For this purpose there has been installed a planning room, equipped
with personnel and appliances, for the regular production of what
might be called the time-tables of the thousands of pieces which must
travel through the pattern shop, the foundry, the forge shop, the ma-
chine shop, and the erecting shop on their way from the stage of raw
material to that of finished product, without collisions or unneces-
sary delays. We have systematized the issue of material for manu-
facture from the storehouses to the shops. . . . We have systematized
the care of material in store and the accountability for it, so as to
insure more frequent and accurate check of the material on hand with
the clerical statement of what ought to be on hand. We have also
systematized the methods of caring for machines and tools so as to
preserve their efficiency; for example, the proper maintenance of the
condition and tightness of the extensive system of belting, and the
systematic tempering and grinding of cutting tools; and we have
made such improvements in the efficiency of certain machines as to
greatly increase their output. As an example of this last-mentioned
item of improvement, we made such changes in the cutters and speeds
of a certain gear-cutting machine as to increase its daily output nearly
threefold, and this at a time when it was operating in accordance with
general practice and to the satisfaction of the skilled workman who
was employed at it.

SERVING THE ARMY 337

In a later report Crozier referred to the fact that, " since
everybody always has been striving for system and order in
manufacturing operations," the question naturally arose as
to what was new in the " systemization of processes of manu-
facture " under the Taylor System.

The answer must be made [he continued] that the amount of atten-
tion which is given under Mr. Taylor's method to system, as evi-
denced by the number of the personnel engaged and the expense in-
volved — that is, by the amount of administrative energy which is
devoted to it — is so different from that which has ever anywhere be-
fore his time been devoted to systemization as to be absolutely revolu-
tionary.

Crozier's report in 1 9 1 1 of the economies effected at Water-
town by these Taylor methods is too long for reproduction
here. One item must suffice: " In the case of the 6-inch dis-
appearing-gun carriages, the cost of the direct labor was
reduced from $10,239 to $6,949, and that of the indirect
labor and other shop expenses from $10,263 to $8,956."
Continuing, Crozier said:

In view of the successful results obtained at the Watertown Arsenal,
in December last [1910] I decided to assemble at that arsenal a board,
which included the commanding officers of the principal manufac-
turing arsenals, for the purpose of studying the shop methods which
had there been put in practice and of determining the extent to which
these methods were suitable for other arsenals.

The board of officers made a thorough study of the Watertown
methods and recommended the adoption of those methods for similar
work at other manufacturing arsenals, with such changes in details
as local conditions seemed to require.

It will be observed that the methods here referred to by
Crozier had to do only with that part of the Taylor System
which is related to what the General called the " systemiza-

338 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

tion of processes of manufacture," and had nothing at all to
do with that part which, in the General's language, " relates
to the quantity of output to be obtained from the workman,
and the stimulus required to induce him to cheerfully and
earnestly and intelligently strive to give the output." All of
which is to say that up to the time in December, 1910, when
General Crozier's board of officers visited Watertown, no
attempt had been made at this arsenal to deal directly with
the labor conditions.

However, in January, 191 1, Taylor, with Earth's approval,
wrote to Crozier suggesting that Dwight V. Merrick, who had
received his training at the Bethlehem and Link-Belt plants,
be employed at Watertown as a specialist in time study. Here
again General Crozier had to apply to President Taft for an
order waiving the civil service regulations j but although this
was the very month in which Taft endorsed the denial to
Naval Constructor Evans of an opportunity to study under
Taylor, the President again promptly complied with Crozier's
request.

Merrick began his time-study work at Watertown in May,
191 1, and this in the machine shop. As, owing to the lack
of repetitive work, piece rates could not be set, there was
adopted a modification of the Halsey premium plan. The
first job in this shop that Merrick analyzed — one requiring
the cutting of teeth in seventeen gear wheels — will illus-
trate how the premium plan for time saved by the workman
was made to work in connection with time study. We quote
from an official report made in August, 191 1, by Colonel
Wheeler, the commanding officer:

Under the day-wage plan the average time of the workman in cut-
ting the teeth in these 17 gear wheels was 191 minutes per gear, and
the cost per gear to the Government, considering both direct and in-
direct charges, was $2.41. As a result of the time study, this work-
man was told that these gears should be cut in 71 minutes each. As

SERVING THE ARMY 339

it was intended that the workman in cutting a gear wheel in this time
should earn a premium of 33^ per cent over his day rate, he was told
that he would begin to earn a premium when he reached a rate of
120 minutes per gear. The premium continues to increase as the time
of cutting decreases and becomes 33^ per cent when the time per
gear reaches 71 minutes [the standard time]. As the cutting time still
further decreases, the premium increases without limit. It will be
understood that the limit of 120 minutes was purposely set so that
the workman and the arsenal would share equally in any savings made
under the 120 minutes, so that the plan is in a sense cooperative. The
man cut these gears under the premium plan in 79 minutes each,
thus increasing his pay 20 per cent over his day rate and reducing the
cost of the gears to the Government from $2.41 each to $1.06 each.
This was accomplished after the machine had been speeded up [by
Barth]. A comparison of this result with that of the period before the
speeding up of the machine shows that under the new system we
accomplished 5.46 times as much work as under the old method of
management.

And Colonel Wheeler went on to say:

The man was not speeded up in the operation, but was required to do
a number of things while the machine was running that he used to
wait to do until the machine had stopped. Altogether it is considered
that the great gain resulted from an endeavor to make as many opera-
tions as possible simultaneous instead of consecutive and to make the
consecutive ones follow each other without interruption.

The time study of this gear-cutting job was made with a
stop watch. It had to be. Before it was undertaken its
purpose was fully explained to the man who was doing the
job. He oflfered no objection, and gradually the stop watch
became a familiar object in that shopj all hands learning
that they had no reason to fear itj that, on the contrary, it
helped them to earn more money. There was not even a
flurry. But elsewhere trouble was brewing.

340 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Rock Island was one of the arsenals to which, in conse-
quence of the inquiry made at Watertown by Crozier's board
of officers, it was resolved to extend Taylor methods per-
taining to the " systemization of processes of manufacture."
It will be remembered that in the autumn of 1908 there had
been trouble at this Illinois arsenal following the attempt of
Major Hobbs to introduce time study there. Early in 191 1,
or just before the time study was begun at Watertown, the
Taylor " job card " was introduced at Rock Island. Immedi-
ately an alarm was sounded, chiefly by one N. P. Alifas, who
then was a machinist employed at the arsenal, and later went
to Washington, where he called himself the " representative
of the machinists employed in the arsenals and navy yards of
the United States." Apparently at the request of Alifas, offi-
cials of the International Association of Machinists went to
the vicinity of the Rock Island Arsenal, there to conduct an
agitation.

It was explained by the arsenal authorities that the job card
to which objection was made had for its principal object the
recording of information which would enable the cost of the
job to be charged to the proper order, and had nothing to do
either with any efforts that the workmen were expected to
make or with their pay. It was demanded by the labor leaders
that, as a condition of the introduction of the job card, the
promise be made that the features of the Taylor System which
did directly aff^ect the workmen should not in the future be
adopted at the arsenal. This demand was not acceded toj the
job card was duly introduced, and nothing came of the threats
to call out the arsenal's workmen.

However, on April 26, 191 1, James O'Connell, president
of the " International Association of Machinists, affiliated with
the American Federation of Labor," sent to the various lodges
of that association a circular the meat of which will be found
in these paragraphs:

SERVING THE ARMY 341

Wherever this [Taylor] system has been tried it has resulted either
in labor trouble and failure to install the system, or it has destroyed
the labor organization and reduced the men to virtual slavery and
low wages, and has engendered such an air of suspicion among the
men that each man regards every other man as a possible traitor and
spy.

The present effort on the part of Mr. Taylor is to have his system
installed in the Government arsenals and navy yards. He has been
so successful that the War Department has decided to give the system
a trial. This would give his methods a tremendous advertisement,
and only be a short time until all private manufacturers throughout
the country would adopt his system, since, with the public, the Govern-
ment has the reputation of being a good employer. This is but another
instance in which a good reputation is exploited for a despicable pur-
pose. We do not know what motives the War Department has in this
matter, but we do know that this proposed staggering blow at labor
must be met by determined resistance.

The installation of the Taylor System throughout the country
means one of two things, i.e., either the machinists will succeed in
destroying the usefulness of this system through resistance, or it will
mean the wiping out of our trade and organization, with the accom-
panying low wages, life-destroying hard work, long hours, and in-
tolerable conditions generally.

This, since Taylor began his work, was the first action defi-
nitely signifying that organized labor was resolved to fight
his system. It is to be recalled that in this spring of 191 1
the interest of the general public in Scientific Management
was at its height. Writing in June, 191 1, to Crozier, Taylor
said :

I had already received the circular from the Machinists' Association.
I dare say that you already know that for many years a similar pro-
hibition has been issued to members of this union against working on
piece work and against accepting any kind of premium on task work;
in fact, the only thing permitted by the Machinists' Union is straight
day work. And these early prohibitions of piece work and task

342 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

work, etc., have been worded in quite as strong a way as the circular
against our system of management.

I realize, of course, that it is unfortunate that this circular should
have been sent out. On the other hand, the great and genuine in-
terest which has been awakened through all classes of the community
in scientific management, I think, more than offsets any direct harm
that can come from action on the part of the unions.

I feel quite sure that if you go right straight ahead introducing
our system, one step after another, and do not attempt short cuts,
and do not try to hurry it too fast, that you will meet with practically
no opposition to it, for the very fundamental reason that each workman
who works under it finds himself happier, more contented, and far
better off financially than he was before.

When the labor leaders had an opportunity to state their
case at the many hearings on the subject o£ the Taylor System
which later were conducted under government auspices, it
indeed came out that what they stood for was the straight
day-work plan j that they regarded it as an insult to the honest
workingman to suggest that it could not be left to him to
determine his own output or do what they called " a fair day's
work" J and that they would have the practice of individ-
ualizing workmen by paying each according to his output or
efficiency made illegal.

Thus a clear-cut issue was raised which Colonel Wheeler,
the commanding officer at Watertown, described in these words:
" The question now seems to be whether the Government
shall be permitted to determine in a scientific manner a standard
of measurement of the proper output of a workman, or whether
the workman shall decide this for himself." Based on his
experience at Watertown, the Colonel added: "The former
method insures great savings to the Government and increased
wages to its workmen j the latter method insures heavy and
continued losses."

In response to O'ConnelPs circular, many of the lodges of

SERVING THE ARMY 343

the Machinists' Association sent protests against the Taylor
System to the Secretary of War. Also a committee of the
Rock Island employees came to Washington to protest. Then
the Member of Congress from the Iowa district opposite Rock
Island (which is in the Mississippi River) introduced a resolu-
tion directing the Committee on Labor to investigate the
Taylor System j which resolution immediately was passed with-
out opposition. Headed by William B. Wilson, the Com-
mittee on Labor held its hearings in the latter part of April.

Despite all this, Crozier stood firm, and had the backing
of the Secretary of War. As we have seen, time study was
begun in May in the machine shop at Watertown, and did not
there create a ripple. However upon this arsenal the labor
leaders now had their eyes fixed. In fairness to them it must
be stated that if their attempts to organize the arsenal's work-
men were not conspicuously successful, they were confronted
by a hard task. These government workmen had stability of
employment guaranteed to them by the civil service regula-
tions j they had an eight-hour dayj every year, besides seven
full holidays and thirteen Saturday half-holidays, they were
granted more than thirteen days leave of absence with payj
the government's liability law afiForded them and their de-
pendents unusual protection against disability j and they en-
joyed at the arsenal unusual arrangements for their comfort.
Still, it is not to be supposed that these men could remain
totally unaffected by the outside agitation which was now in
full cry and was brought directly to bear on them.

On August 10, while Barth was absent, time study was intro-
duced into the foundry at Watertown. The job of a molder
named Hendry was on that day selected for study by Merrick.
Hendry offered no objection. The next morning Merrick told
a molder named Cooney that he wished to study his job.
Cooney refused to have such a study madej and it then came
out that on the evening before all the molders had met and

344 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

agreed that if efforts were made to time the work of any of
them, they would present an ultimatum to Colonel Wheeler,
the commanding officer. Wheeler's reply to the ultimatum
was to direct his first assistant officer. Major Williams, to
explain to Cooney, the molder, why it was considered necessary
to take observations of his work, and to tell him that as long
as he remained at the arsenal he must obey orders. Cooney
told Major Williams that he had no personal objections to
being timed, but that " the organization " objected. Persist-
ing in his refusal to obey orders, he was discharged. At once,
on this eleventh day of August, 191 1, all of the other molders
quit. ,

Barth heard the news the next morning when, being in
Boston in connection with other work, he dropped in at Water-
town " unofficially." He was much agitated. It was the first
strike that had occurred under Scientific Management.

He carried the news to Taylor, who also happened to be in
Boston at this time. It is violating no secret to say that Barth
and Taylor both attributed the trouble at the arsenal to a
mistake in tactics. Up to August 10, the men in the foundry,
unlike the men in the machine shop, had been little affected
by the changes made in the arsenal's system j and it was the
view of Barth and Taylor that before any attempt was made
to introduce time study there, careful efforts should have been
made to discover the sentiment among the molders, and thus
avoid the raising of any direct issue between them and the
management. Nevertheless, Taylor gave no symptom of
being in any way disturbed. He read extracts from Sho-p
Management bearing on the strike, and reviewed the whole
situation in a spirit of philosophic calm. " Talk with the men,"
he told Barth. " Find out just what is in their minds. Look
at the thing through their eyes. Act accordingly, and it will
come out all right." Says a third person who happened to
be present at this conference : " Mr. Taylor was not here talk-

SERVING THE ARMY 345

ing for the public. He was speaking simply for the benefit
of his chief lieutenant. But I never heard a better exposition
of the Golden Rule."

Though it is difficult to deal with men who are being worked
upon by agitators, it came out pretty much as Taylor said.
When the molders struck on August 11, steps were taken at
the arsenal to fill their places, and some new men were taken
on. However, on August 18, the strikers generally returned
to work under the same conditions as those on account of which
they had quit, but with the understanding that the whole matter
would be investigated by General Crozier.

What immediately followed is of interest: The Watertown
foundry had an order for a large number of molds for pack-
saddle pommels. The first man put on this job made on an
average nine molds a day, and he, backed up by the civilian
foreman of the foundry, who was not in sympathy with Taylor
methods, contended that this production was ample. A time
study having been made of the job, a new man was put on it
under the premium plan, and he made on an average 24 molds
a day. The previous molder had earned $3.28 a day 5 the
new molder earned $5.74 a day. And after all direct and
overhead charges had been taken into consideration, it was
shown that the cost of each mold to the Government had been
reduced from $1.17 to 54 cents.

But the outside agitation went on. It was represented to
Congress that the brief strike of the molders indicated the
existence at the Watertown Arsenal of unsatisfactory condi-
tions, directly due to the introduction there of the Taylor
System. Thus on August 21, 191 1, the House of Repre-
sentatives adopted a resolution that the Speaker appoint a
committee of three to investigate. And so came into existence
the special committee consisting of William B. Wilson,
William C. Redfield, and John Q. Tilson. Mr. Wilson,
formerly an official of the United Mine Workers, then chair-

346 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

man of the House Labor Committee, and later Secretary of
Labor in the cabinet of President Wilson, was a Democrat,
as was also Mr. Redfield, a manufacturer who knew much
about Scientific Management from his own experience, and
later became Secretary of Commerce in President Wilson's
cabinet. Mr. Tilson, who up to this time had had no occasion
to consider such things as systems of shop management, and
therefore was selected to act as a sort of umpire, was a Republi-
can. The appointment of such a high-class committee indicated
a sincere desire to get at the truth, and Taylor was pleased.

The committee began its work on October 4, 191 1, and did
not finish it until February 12, 191 2. It visited the Water-
town Arsenal, and held hearings in Boston, New York, and
Washington. Ample opportunity was given to everyone to be
heard — to government officials and employees, to outside
labor leaders and workmen, to civilian managers and industrial
engineers, and to social workers. The course of William B.
Wilson throughout was a fine example of how a man may
zealously serve a cause — in his case, that of labor — and at
the same time be scrupulously courteous and fair. Though he
and Taylor had many tilts, the feeling Taylor came to entertain
for him was not remote from one of affection.

In organizing the case for Scientific Management, Taylor
was handicapped by the general warfare which at this time
the labor unions were directing against his system. Strikes
were ordered on buildings simply because a few men on the
job happened to be employees of Scientific Management
establishments. Midvale and Bethlehem officials told Taylor
frankly that they did not want the attention of labor leaders
to be drawn to their establishments, and that no help could
be expected from them, even if their establishments were
attacked at the hearings. Towne refused to have the com-
mittee visit the Yale & Towne works, and it was with reluctance
that he consented to testify. And even in the case of the Link-

SERVING THE ARMY 347

Belt company, the directors were averse to Dodge's taking the
stand. Terrorism was in the air.

At most of the hearings, especially the early ones, Taylor
was present as a sort of lay counsel for his cause j being assisted
in this work by Dr. Hollis Godfrey. As lay counsel for the
case against Scientific Management there appeared the Mr.
Alifas who has been mentioned in connection with the starting
of the trouble at the Rock Island Arsenal, and John R.
O'Leary, third vice president of the International Molders'
Union, who said he represented " the molders employed in
the Government yards in the Boston industrial district."

Taylor's own testimony was given at the Capitol in Washing-
ton towards the close of the hearings, in January, 19 12. He
was on the stand more than twelve hours scattered over a
period of four days. As already indicated, his testimony was
an heroic effort to make as comprehensible to the ordinary
mind as possible a subject extraordinarily ramified and bristling
with technicalities and complexities. That which has not yet
been referred to is the scene which occurred at the close of his
testimony.

Says Miss Ida M. Tarbell:'

One of the most sportsmanh"ke exhibits the country ever saw was
Mr. Taylor's willingness to subject himself to the heckling and the
badgering of labor leaders, congressmen, and investigators of all de-
grees of misunderstanding, suspicion and ill will. To a man of his
temperament and highly trained intellect, who had given a quarter of
a century of the hardest kind of toil to develop useful truths, the kind
of questioning to which he was sometimes subjected must have been
maddening.

The ship all along had carried too much power for the hull.
Not that the hull was weak, but that the power was great.
And in this month of January, 191 2, his nerves were jumping.

^ New Ideals in Business, p. 315.

348 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

What it cost him to marshal the case of Scientific Management
at these hearings and give his lengthy and difficult testimony,
we can only guess.

At the close of his testimony he was deliberately baited by
his labor-leader opponents. Two of them went at him at the
same time with insults and sneers. In so far as the plan was
to make him lose his temper, to destroy his self-control, it was
a success. With flushed face, he hurled denunciations at his
opponents and made accusations which in the nature of things
he could not prove. For a time it appeared as if blows would
be struck. Chairman Wilson, who, it is needless to say, had
no part in the baiting, had to raise his voice to a shout to make
himself heard and restore order. Taylor's friends who were
there present viewed the scene with emotions such as one
might experience upon seeing a magnificent stag worried and
brought low by a pack of wolves.

When order was restored, it was agreed to strike what had
passed from the record. There is no doubt that Taylor's pride
was wounded. He left the stand much shaken. Again he
nearly lost his self-control when Godfrey, who accompanied
him from the Capitol, could not get a taxicab immediately.
Such was his condition that Godfrey thought it best to see him
to his train 5 and at the station Taylor once more burst out at
what he considered a needless delay in opening the gates. Yes,
his enemies had their little triumph. Let us hope they con-
tinue to enjoy it.

What is certain is that there was not much enjoyment for
them in the report the committee made to the House. Dated
March 9, 191 2, it was unanimous. The opponents of the
Taylor System virtually had concentrated their attack upon
the time-study and premium features installed at the Water-
town Arsenal j alleging that these things were detrimental to
the health and general well-being of the employees. Said the
committee in its report:

SERVING THE ARMY 349

Neither the Taylor system, the Emerson system, the Gantt system,
the Brombacher system, the Stimpson system [names of various engi-
neers who had testified], nor any of the systems of so-called scientific
management have been in existence long enough for your committee
to determine with accuracy their effect on the health and pay of em-
ployees and their effect on wages and labor cost. The conclusions
we have arrived at are all based upon what we consider to be the
logical sequence of the conditions existing or proposed. The selection
of any system of shop management for the various Government works
must be to a great extent a matter of administration, and your com-
mittee does not deem it advisable nor expedient to make any recom-
mendations for legislation upon the subject at this time.

General Crozier's official comment on the committee's report
was this:

In other words, the committee, properly zealous to protect the well-
being of the employees, failed to find any ground in the representations
made by the opponents of the system upon which to base condemnation
or serious criticism of the methods in effect or contemplated by this
department, or any conditions which called for remedial legislation,
although it showed its alert interest in the well-being of the workmen
by mentioning and condemning many oppressive practices, which it
did not find, and did not say it had found, at the arsenals of this de-
partment.

It may be added that the committee did not find, and did
not say it had found, any abuses of workmen under the Taylor
System at any establishment. Its reference to possible abuses,
though seemingly uncalled for, was understood by Taylor to
be due, partly to an assumed need of tossing a few bones to
the party against whom the decision went, but mainly to the
concessions that had to be made so that the committee might
present an unanimous report. It is significant that Tilson, the
member of the committee who had had no prepossessions one
way or the other, wrote to Taylor on September 18, 191 2:

350 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

" I feel confident that when your system is thoroughly under-
stood, workmen themselves will rise up and demand it."

The fact that the House of Representatives' special com-
mittee found there was nothing in the situation that warranted
legislation directed against the Taylor System did not deter its
enemies from going right ahead to procure such legislation.
Bills repeatedly were introduced in the House making it an
offense punishable by imprisonment or fine or both for any
officer of the United States, or any other person having charge
of the work of a Government employee, to make any time
study of such work or pay the employee any premium in addi-
tion to his regular wages. When it became evident that wild-
eyed legislation of this kind had little chance of being enacted,
the scheme was resorted to of attaching to appropriation bills
this rider:

PROVIDED, That no part of the appropriations made in this bill
shall be available for the salary or pay of any officer, manager, super-
intendent, foreman, or other person having charge of the work of
any employee of the United States Government while making or
causing to be made, with a stop-watch or other time-measuring de-
vice, a time study of any job of any such employee between the start-
ing and completion thereof of the movements of any such employee
while engaged upon such work; nor shall any part of the appropria-
tions made in this bill be available to pay any premium or bonus or
cash reward to any employee in addition to his regular wages, except for
suggestions resulting in improvements or economy in the operations of
any Government plant; and no claim for service performed by any
person while violating this proviso shall be allowed.

This rider or proviso first was attached to army and navy
appropriation bills in the Congress which was in session in the
winter of 19 14-15. In the House there was practically no
debate upon the proviso, and it was adopted by a large majority.
In the Senate there was a lengthy debate. The chief speakers

SERVING THE ARMY 351

against the proviso were Senators Elihu Root, of New York,
and John W. Weeks, of Massachusetts. Root's eflForts to pre-
vent such legislation as this constituted practically his last
service as a Senator. The chief speaker for the proviso was
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts, who made
these astonishing remarks:

The one object of the time measure is to produce speed. . . . We
all associate a stop watch with its use for racing horses. ... I do
not believe, Mr. Chairman, in standing over men with stop watches
to see how far they can go under pressure in securing speed in per-
forming a given piece of work. The very fact of a stop watch im-
plies strain on every faculty, on every physical power, driving the
heart and lungs and every muscle to the utmost possible point.

Then Senator Lodge went on to talk about " the days of
slavery " and the slave owners who believed it " profitable to
work the slaves to the last possible point and let them die."
Writing about this debate to General Crozier on March 3,
19 1 5, Taylor said:

The greatest disappointment of the whole debate to me is the dis-
gusting demagogery of Lodge, who I thought was entirely above
yielding to any such temptation. He had every possible facility to
inform himself accurately as to the ends of our system. I know a
number of men who wrote him in detail on the matter and also
suggested his coming to see me; and all that he would have had to
do would have been to consult Senator Weeks, his colleague from
Massachusetts, to get the necessary information.

The Senate rejected the prohibitive legislation, but it was
restored in conference between the two Houses j and right
along after this, in Congress after Congress, the prohibitive
rider was attached, not only to army and navy, but also to for-
tifications and post-office appropriation bills. Thus General
Crozier's efforts to introduce the Taylor System at his arsenals
were crippled, if far from being entirely stopped.

352 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

For the moral courage displayed by Crozier in coming out
squarely in favor of the Taylor System, and for the ability
he showed in preparing his reports, Taylor had the highest
admiration. Crozier's own view of it may be read in these
words with which he closed an address which, soon after
Taylor's death in 191 5, he delivered before the Philadelphia
School of Commerce and Accounts:

It has been more than once represented to me that I have increased
the difficulty of maintaining scientific management in the Ordnance
Department by calh'ng it the " Taylor System," and that I would have
less difficulty if I should suppress this name, which is declared to be
anathema to organized labor. I have not cared to do this. I regard
Mr. Taylor as the father of scientific management, without intending
to detract from the credit of its able apostles. We have employed
Mr. Taylor's system, installed with the aid of an expert designated by
him, and in its actual practice we have had a fair measure of the suc-
cess which he promised. We hope we are not through with improve-
ment and with the attainment of further success. I believe that the
credit which is due to the founder of the system should be rendered
by using his name in connection with the employment of it, and I am
unwilling to render the task of employing scientific management in the
arsenals of the Ordnance Department more easy of accomplishment
through disassociation from it of the name of the great man to whom
it is due.

CHAPTER XIII

TOWARD THE CLOSE OF 1910

IN THOSE days it took courage to accord specific recogni-
tion to the Taylor System, not only in government and
other manufacturing plants, but in colleges and univer-
sities j and this must be recognized in connection with Dean
Gay's action at Harvard, and more particularly with his action
in continuing to announce courses in the Taylor System despite
the increasing acrimony of the controversy.

Now, in 1905, before Harvard organized its Graduate
School of Business Administration, the teaching of manage-
ment had been started in the Amos Tuck School of Adminis-
tration and Finance at Dartmouth College. A few years later,
in 1 9 10, this Amos Tuck School, under the direction of Dr.
Harlow S. Person, also took the significant step of making
Scientific Management the basic element of its instruction in
management. And Dr. Person's reason for taking this step is of
particular interest to us here. " We found," he says, " that
the Taylor System was the only system of management which
was coherent and logical, and therefore was teachable."

After Taylor gave up working for money, he undoubtedly
considered that the main service he could render the world
was that of propagating his general principles, and he was ever
ready to give counsel and supply inspiration along the lines
of these principles. An example of this is afforded by the
Packard Motor Car Company. F. F. Beall, this company's
" vice president of manufacturing," was among the first
executives to become interested in the high-speed steel dis-
covery at Bethlehem. The acquaintance thus formed between

353

354 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

him and Taylor in 1898 ripened Into friendship. Many times
in the years that followed Beall went to Boxly, there to sit
before the log fire in the living-room discussing problems of
management with his host. Here also is what he writes us
about a visit Taylor paid to the Packard factory in February,
1909:

He stopped over in Detroit on his return from a meeting at the
University of Illinois at Urbana, and came directly to the factory.
After he had visited around the factory with me, and gone into the
methods of handling various kinds of work, we assembled in the
directors' room and he gave a talk for the various officials, including
Mr. H. B. Joy [the chief executive]. He began his discussion about
10:30 A.M. and concluded slightly before 3 p.m. Mr. Taylor cer-
tainly gave an interesting talk, and Mr. Joy, vi^ho was very busy, told
him before he began that he probably would have to leave during his
talk, but he stayed through the entire meeting.

Adoption of the principles of management advocated by him in part
of our business was not only the direct outcome of our friendship, but
because of the great merit and originality of his methods above any
others that we know of.

Much latitude Taylor conceded in connection with particular
applications of his general principles. He recognized, more-
over, that executives are far from being always free to do
what they personally would like to do. The longer he lived,
the more willing he was to render any service, provided only
that the other party had some ideals beyond money-grubbing,
was actuated by a real spirit of progress, and was sincerely
desirous of doing the right thing by his working people.
Nevertheless, even his general principles were not so general
that they were indefinite} and when people who had read his
papers, or just heard of him as an efficiency expert, wrote to
him, he invariably made plain that he regarded some methods
of applying his principles as better than others, and thus stood
for something highly distinctive and concrete.

TOWARD THE CLOSE OF 1 910 355

However, while he made this plain, his correspondents
almost invariably received a reply similar to this one he ad-
dressed in 1907 to a Chicago manufacturer who had read his
paper On the Art of Cutting Metals:

I am reluctant to advise any one to adopt our methods of man-
agement, since they involve a very considerable revolution from the
ordinary way of doing things; and without the direction of an expert
who is thoroughly familiar, not only with the system but with the
successive steps which would have to be taken in introducing it, you
would be extremely likely to have serious labor trouble and strikes.
During the 26 years, however, that I have been engaged in this work,
I have never had a single strike.

We have never failed to get a very large increase in the output of
the works and offices which we have systematized, but since our
methods involve the training of men into new ways of doing things,
they are necessarily slow. If you are thinking of adopting our
methods, I should strongly advise you to go to some establishment
which is now running under our system, and see for yourself just
what we are doing.

Here followed the usual cordial invitation to come to Boxly
and visit " some of the Philadelphia plants operating under our
system."

For writing such letters as this he, as usual, had his reasons.
He knew that those who took up the definite thing for which
he stood would, at the best, have trouble in introducing it.
Therefore, it was important that they should take up his system,
not because they were talked into it by him, but because they
themselves wanted it, and, as he expressed it, " wanted it
badly." He knew that the only thing which could keep them
going through the " hell period " would be their own vision
of the goal to be reached. And this vision should be shared in
by everyone who had a voice in the management of the enter-
prise, including the directors, if it was a corporation.

But it was not enough that those who were to take up his

356 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

system should do it of their own accord. They should have
expert advice. And when it came down to cases in these years,
it always proved that Taylor had only four experts to recom-
mend} namely, Barth, Gantt, Hathaway, and Cooke. Hardly
was it strange that this got badly on many people's nerves.
It was trying to other efficiency experts, be they bad, indif-
ferent, or good, to have it spread abroad that none would do
except one of these four. And it was trying to business men
to be told that these were the only competent ones, especially
when this information was followed by the statement that all
four were so busy that he would be in luck who could enlist
the service of any one of them.

Now, we know that Taylor was far from being above the
wish to boost a friend. But if friendship entered into these
recommendations of his, it was only incidentally. The main
thing was that, standing for a definite thing, he could recom-
mend in connection with it only such experts as he personally
knew were versed in it and more particularly in the program
or technic of development which experience had taught him
must be followed if the development were to be successful.
This program has been summarized by Dr. Person as follows:

Preh'minary analysis as a basis for standardization of conditions;
standardization of conditions; provision for maintenance of the
standardized conditions; and then the detail job analysis and the setting
of rates by the method of unit time study in the environment of
standard conditions. Out of the job analyses which follow standardi-
zation of conditions may come instruction cards, precise scheduling,
bonus or other differential wage systems, — a precise general and spe-
cific control.

What may be here read is that a successful development of
Scientific Management consists of two distinct parts. The first,
which relates to the standardization of all the conditions under
which work is done (what Crozier called " systemization of

TOWARD THE CLOSE OF 1 910 357

processes of manufacture "), has no direct bearing on the work-
men j whereas the second, having to do with their production
as individuals and the wages they should receive, does directly
affect them.

Taylor always insisted that, before any move was made in
connection with the second part, the first part be thoroughly
discharged, even if it took one or two years, as it frequently
did. He had two reasons for this insistence. The first related
to the fact that, without standardization of all the conditions
under which work is done, workmen cannot maintain standards
of accomplishment. The second had to do with the fact that
— in his day, at all events — workmen were likely to be
alarmed by change just because it was change, and the pro-
longed work of standardizing general conditions gradually
accustomed them to the idea of change before any changes were
made affecting them directly.^

It is to be considered, moreover, in connection with Taylor's
course in recommending only Barth, Gantt, Hathaway, and
Cooke, that men who once had been employed under him, and
at the best knew only a few features of his system, were, even
in the period between 1906 and 19 10, setting themselves up
as full-fledged Taylor experts j while regular engineers who
professed to be his friends and to honor him for his achieve-
ments were in secret telling business men they could introduce
his methods without his "elaborate ritual "j that is, could get
the same results by taking " short cuts " which would save
much time and money. And the strikes and other unpleasant
things brought on by these men usually were directly charged
up to Taylor and his system.

Incidentally, there were many other ways in which he had
to be careful, though it assisted to bring on him the reproach

^ A thing most people have failed to understand is that the work of
standardizing general conditions as directed by Taylor is productive of
economies highly valuable in themselves. For an admirable summary of these
economies see Robert F. Hoxie's Scientific Management and Labor, p. 21.

358 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

of running a close corporation. These other ways will appear
from a letter he wrote in 1913 to General Crozier, when the
General had refused to give to a technical journal the detailed
results of the time studies made at the Watertown Arsenal.

I thank you very much [said Taylor] for the stand you have taken.
I do not think that any one of those engaged in introducing scientific
management would have any objection to giving away practically any
of the information we have, providing we were absolutely assured that
this information would be used so as to get practical results which
would redound to the credit of scientific management.

There was a time when we allowed anyone, perfectly freely, to
have the use, for example, of our slide rules, and also in which we
gave freely the results of our time study. Our experience in this,
however, was almost disastrous, because the people who got our slide
rules and those who had the data connected with time study, at-
tempted to use it without any preparation which was in the least degree
adequate, and as a result they invariably made a failure of their use
of the data or the apparatus. And then, instead of realizing their
own mistake, they charged the failure up to scientific management,
and in many cases were not content with saying to their friends and
associates that scientific management was of no account, but they took
pains to spread the report far and wide that they had tried scientific
management and found it no good, and that it consisted of a mass of
useless red tape.

Early realizing that the greatest call in connection with
his campaign was for men competent to introduce his system as
a whole, he did all he could to develop such men. What he
offered to do in the case of Naval Constructor Evans, he
actually did in the case of several young technical graduates j
that is, paid them salaries during the lengthy periods when
they were learning the theory and practice of his system and
how to install it. These, however, were exceptional cases. As
a general thing, he found it was as useless as it was dangerous
to make things in any way easy for the young men he sought

TOWARD THE CLOSE OF 1910 359

to develop. Certainly all these young men had to go through
a course of sprouts. Here is a typical letter written by him
to a young man who said he wanted to help introduce Scientific
Management:

It is impossible for anyone to undertake the introduction of scien-
tific management without first going through quite a long apprentice-
ship in shops using this system. Without this thorough preparation,
lasting from three to five years, it is impossible to learn the methods
whereby the ways and methods and the whole mental attitude of em-
ployers and employees are gradually changed from the old manage-
ment to the new.

A man must first go to work in a company which has already in-
stalled our system, and as an ordinary workman, working up through
different jobs, and after a good while spent in this way he must then
work in different capacities under some one of the experts who are
now introducing our system.

Hardly necessary is it to say that the overwhelming majority
of the young men who received letters such as this never were
heard from again.

Of course, he did not hold that no executive could introduce
the principles of Scientific Management into his business with-
out the help of an expert. It largely depended upon the size
and complexity of the business, as well as upon the calibre,
mental habits, and previous experience of the executive. And
Taylor's position was also that in pretty nearly every case a
man specially trained in the introduction of his system was
necessary, if the best progress was to he made. What he was
absolutely sure of was that there should be in every sizable
plant a man who could give all his time and thought to the
introduction of the system, whether this man was one of the
executives, or whether he was employed temporarily or
permanently.

Eventually, in fact, he took the ground that even after his
system had been introduced, a plant in any way large should

36o FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

have in it a man free to devote all his time and thought to the
progressive development of the system. At first he hesitated
to break the news to the pilgrims at Boxly that it would take
two or three or more years to introduce his system j for when-
ever such an announcement was made, there was observable
a pronounced tendency to make for the door. But it became
more and more clear to him that there never could be any
end to the mattery that Scientific Management is a state of
mind, not a state of things. Here is a letter he wrote to
General Crozier in February, 1909, when preparations were
being made to introduce his system into the Ordnance Depart-
ment. Great interest it should have as heralding the
" production manager " who now, a decade later, is a familiar
personage in every large well-organized plant, and is even
getting to be " recognized " by the more progressive labor
leaders. With his letter Taylor sent Crozier a statement of
recent developments at the Link-Belt Company.

This [he explained] is one of the companies operating under our
system. Mr. Carl G. Barth introduced our system there, beginning
in the year 1902. He left there about a year and a half ago, having
so far completed his work that it was able to progress with certainty
without him. I am sending you the enclosed statement as an illustra-
tion of the fact that progress is still kept up, even at the end of seven
years, and that once the managers of a company become familiar with
the methods, their old spirit of conservatism entirely disappears, and
they do not merely passively accept improvement, but look forward with
confidence to continually working better and better, while at the
same time they share the fruits of their scientific development with
the workmen.

Under any system that is worthy of the name, progress should
never cease. The time should never come when the management
sits down satisfied with what is going on. And in this company,
right now, they employ a man in each of the three different works
who gives his whole time toward making further progress with per-
fecting the system and developing continually new elements in their

TOWARD THE CLOSE OF 1910 361

particular art. Even if the system is in and completely working, no
company can afford the false economy of saving the salary of the man
who devotes his whole time to progress in system and methods.

It is this that I want to particularly advocate in the case of the man-
agement of your arsenals, namely, that you have one of your best
men trained for each arsenal, to give his whole time to progress. This
man should not be bothered with any of the details of the running of
the establishment. His whole time should be available for improve-
ments in system and methods, and the chief work we have done for
companies has been that of teaching men in them to be able to do this.

To many managers now these statements will seem common-
place j at the time they were written, they were positively
sensational.

In 1908 Taylor was brought into contact with another busi-
ness man of a highly intellectual and scholarly type, and one
therefore who was destined to play a leading part in the
Scientific Management movement. This was Henry P.
Kendall, general manager of the Plimpton Press of Norwood,
near Boston, and interested in several other corporations.

With an inherent desire to have things done in an orderly fashion
[Kendall writes us], I groped from the time I entered into business
for the best systems for doing things, always endeavoring to discover
a simple comprehensive plan for accounting and manufacturing
methods — one so coordinated as to be an entire scheme of manage-
ment. The task of formulating this seemed to be colossal. When I
met Mr. Taylor and comprehended his plan, my hat came off to him;
for then, for the first time, I saw what I had been vaguely hoping for.
Since then I have used all my efforts to develop the Taylor form of
management in every industry I have been interested in.

More than one person has found a resemblance between
Frederick Taylor, the engineer, and Charles Darwin, the
naturalist, in that each, with extraordinary intensity and sacrifice
of other considerations, devoted his life to a single aim, which

362 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

ultimately was a search for truth. The following extract from
a letter written by Taylor in January, 1907, to Charles W.
Baker, of the editorial staff of The Engineering News, will
help us to realize the extent to which he concentrated on his
Scientific Management cause:

Some years ago I found myself spending a great part of my time
in reading the most interesting and latest engineering articles which
appeared in the engineering papers. I found, in fact, that reading
the interesting engineering papers was getting to be a dissipation with
me, so stopped taking all of the scientific magazines, since which time
I doubtless have missed much which was of great value and interest,
but have more time to devote to the special matters in which I have
been particularly interested. I am quite sure you will look upon this
as most narrow, but in my case I believe the expedient was almost a
necessity.

Though long meditating on this cause of his, he, in 1909,
came to the conclusion that it needed a new formal statement.
" I have been thinking for some time past," he wrote to a
member of the Meetings Committee of the A.S.M.E. in
November, 1 909, " of writing a paper on the philosophy of
modern scientific management." Being encouraged to do so,
he set himself to the task, and in January, 19 10, submitted
to the A.S.M.E. his first draft. And now let us see how it
stood with his cause toward the close of 19 10.

It needs no argument to prove that such executives as
Dodge, Towne, Crozier, and Kendall are exceptional. This
extract from a letter written by Taylor in 19 10 to Lieutenant
W. B. Tardy, one of the few naval line officers to appreciate
his principles and methods, will indicate something of what
his experience was with the general run of executives:

I feel quite sure that you will be surprised to find, after you have
introduced scientific management on board a battleship, that it will
have almost no weight with those men who are managing our navy

TOWARD THE CLOSE OF 1910 363

yards. It is a very curious fact that each individual manager looks upon
his problem as the most difficult there is anywhere in the world, and
as having little or no relation to any other problem of management.
This is caused by the fact that each manager realizes the special dif-
ficulties which he has to face in his own problem, and fails to see
that other managers are faced with equal difficulties.

For example, the man who is managing a simple type of company,
in which the work is rather elementary, will say, " Scientific Man-
agement can very readily and very properly be applied to an elab-
orate company, in which there are a great many trades calling for
especial skill, etc., but for my company, which is very simple in its
nature, scientific management calls for too much red tape." On the
other hand, the manager who is at the head of an establishment call-
ing for intricate work, and work of great variety, will state, " Sci-
entific Management can very readily be applied to the simpler kinds of
work, but my work is so intricate and difficult that it can never be
reduced to anything like scientific laws or rules."

I have hardly ever seen the manager who firmly believed at the out-
set that scientific management could be successfully applied to his
particular work.

Among the group of college-faculty women who in Febru-
ary, 1 9 10, visited Boxly and the Tabor plant were Miss M.
Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr, and Miss Sarah
Louise Arnold, dean of Simmons College. In writing to
Taylor about their visit, both expressed, somewhat to his
astonishment, a full and hearty appreciation of what he was
striving for j and his replies to them will serve to throw further
light on his experience with the ordinary business man. Said
he to Miss Thomas:

Time and again the individual who holds the scientific method as
a guiding principle is enabled to decide with confidence and precision
as to the proper procedure in a great variety of undertakings which,
without this general idea as a guide, are most perplexing.

A little more thought on my part would have made it clear to me

3^4 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

that no one class of people were more likely to appreciate the scientific
method as against the rule of thumb idea than ladies like yourselves,
who are leaders in our intellectual development. Many men who are
engaged in the more active doing of things find it diflicult to control
their daily acts in accordance with any definite set of principles.
Throughout their lives they have been guided rather by tradition
and habit than by any broad intellectual principles.

To Miss Arnold he wrote:

I have felt for years that the cause which we were working for was
of great importance to the country, but only a small fraction of the
people appear to agree with me as to the great gain which would result
from the general adoption of scientific management; and most man-
agers and owners of industrial establishments are so inert that even after
they are fully convinced of the desirability of the adoption of scien-
tific management, they are too lazy to take the time and trouble to
put it in.

While Dodge, Towne, Crozier, and Kendall were the most
distinguished and open of his supporters, it is not to be sup-
posed, of course, that there were not many other executives
who had been influenced by him in greater or less degree.
Most of these latter men, however, had little or no missionary
zeal for his cause j their interest in Scientific Management
being practically confined to the benefit they could derive from
it for their own businesses. What he wrote in 19 12 to L. P.
Alford, when this latter gentleman was seeking information
for an A.S.M.E. report, was true from the beginning:

I doubt very much whether you will meet with success in getting
those people who have introduced our system into their works to write
you anything very much one way or the other about our management.
I find that about nine out of ten companies, particularly those who have
paid money out for expert assistants, look upon the system after it is
in their works as one of their assets, and almost without exception
they do not wish their competitors to get the same type of manage-

TOWARD THE CLOSE OF 1910 365

ment. And for this reason most of them promptly change the name
of the system after it is in, and after the man who has systematized
it has left. If Mr. Jones introduced the system and Mr. Smith is the
manager of the establishment, the system becomes the " Smith System "
about ten days after Jones has left.

This is done in some cases through the personal pride of the owners
or managers, who do not wish to bear the brand of anyone's system,
and more frequently as a matter of settled policy, so that their com-
petitors may not get hold of the same thing.

We may take it as a fact that, of the executives who had
received large benefit from his free service and stood to receive
more, comparatively few were willing to identify themselves
in any way with his cause. William Croziers are rare.

The truth is, indeed, that as 19 10 drew to a close, those
men of the industrial world who had any enthusiasm for
Taylor's jundamental principles and methods were extremely
rare. Many were the men who, having heard of his course
at Boxly in exhorting visitors and giving them free advice,
thought he was crazy j and we are assured it is a fact that, in
some instances where men had an interest in proving him
crazy, detectives were employed to hover about his home and
learn what they could about his actions from the servants.
Even in the comparatively small circle of men who had been
directly influenced by him, it was the opinion of some that
what he primarily stood for was too much for human beings
to undertake J that his fundamental principles and methods
were too radical, too revolutionary j required the expendi-
ture of too much time, trouble, and money. In some of
the establishments that had adopted his system wholly or
in part, there was a noticeable let-down of enthusiasm. If to
say that one has tried Scientific Management and found it
does not pay is as much of a joke as it would be to say that one
has tried virtue and found it does not pay, we know that people
in very truth can become weary of virtue, weary of well doing.

266 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

There never was a time, of course, when Taylor did not
rejoice in the esteem and confidence of his peers. As the great
and those who could conceive of greatness came his way, they
knew him at sight. And we must keep in mind that his cause
at this time indeed remained to a certain few men as a kind
of an industrial religion. But there was trouble somewhere
right along, and there is reason to believe that some men whom
he had loaded with benefits were preparing to repudiate him
and all his works j having become fairly well convinced that
his cause was a lost one.

But all this largely was changed when, in November, 1910,
his cause suddenly and dramatically was lifted into general
prominence through the course of Mr. Brandeis at the railway-
rate hearings.

BOOK VII
IN CONCLUSION

By experiment, by original studies, by secret obedience, he has made a place for
himself in the world; stands there a real, substantial, unprecedented person,
and when the great come by, as always there are angels walking in the earth,
they know him at sight. Effectual service in his own legitimate fasiiion distin-
guishes the true man. For he is to know that the distinction of a royal nature
is a great heart; that not Louis Quatorze, not Chesterfield, nor Byron, nor Bona-
parte is the model of the century, but, wherever found, the old renown attaches
to the virtues of simple faith and stanch endurance and clear perception and
plain speech, and that there is a master grace and dignity communicated by ex-
alted sentiments to a human form, to which utility and even genius must do
homage. And it is the sign and badge of this nobility, the drawing his counsel
from his own breast.

Emerson's Aristocracy

CHAPTER I

THE RAILROADS AND SCIENTIFIC

MANAGEMENT

WRITING In January, 191 1, to Admiral Goodrich, who
was traveling abroad, Taylor said:

A very extraordinary thing has happened through a Boston lawyer
named Louis D. Brandeis. . . .

Brandeis has for many years devoted a considerable part of his
time to serving in the capacity of, as he calls it, " the people's
lawyer." He has taken a great variety of cases, notably brought
about the ten-hour law for women in Oregon and then in Illinois,
and all public work of this sort he has done for nothing.

When the Eastern railroads asked the Interstate Commerce Com-
mission for an increase in the freight rates, Brandeis took up the
case of the shippers to prevent this arbitrary increase in rates, and
adopted a very ingenious and what I think will prove to be a suc-
cessful course in at least modifying the increase in freight rates
which the railroads asked for. He went before the Interstate Com-
merce Commission in Washington, claiming that the practical man-
agement of the railroads was completely out of date and inefficient,
and that they could save, through efficient management, far more
than they could accomplish through an increase of freight rates;
manifestly to the great benefit both of themselves and the whole
country.

In proving his case, he brought before the Interstate Commerce
Commission the various managers and owners of the companies
which are running under our type of management — Mr. Dodge,
of the Link-Belt; Hathaway, of the Tabor; Towne, of the Yale
& Towne Co., and a lot of others; and he was so successful in setting
forth the merits of scientific management that he has awakened the

369

370 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

whole country, and the interest now taken in scientific management
is almost comparable to that which was aroused in the conservation
of our natural resources by Roosevelt.

The testimony to the effect that through Scientific Manage-
ment the railroads could increase their employees' wages and
at the same time reduce their operating cost was introduced
by Brandeis in November, 1910, after the hearings before
the Interstate Commerce Commission had been in progress for
about two months. As we have seen, a sensation was created
by the statement of Harrington Emerson that the railroads
could save a million dollars a day, while the phrase Scientific
Management by itself appealed to the non-technical press as
a startling novelty.

Now, how did Mr. Brandeis hear of the system that com-
bined high wages and low costs, and how did he come to call it
Scientific Management?

In a letter written by him in September, 191 6, for our
benefit, he said:

In September, 19 10, I entered, as unpaid counsel for the Trade
Associations of the Atlantic Seaboard, on what is known as the first
Advance (Freight) Rate Investigation before the Interstate Com-
merce Commission.

At these hearings, which were begun in New York, I was im-
pressed by the lack of accurate information disclosed by the rail-
road witnesses concerning the cost of service, and generally the lack
of knowledge of the elements of cost entering into the service.
As the hearings developed I became convinced that one of the great
causes of the lack of net income, of which the railroads were com-
plaining, was the lack of efficiency and of an intimate knowledge
of the cost of operation which in competitive industrial businesses
had been developed. There came to mind discussions which I had
had on the subject of efficiency with Mr. Harrington Emerson some
years before, and certain statements he had made upon relative effi-
ciency or inefficiency of the various railroads. I also had in mind.

THE RAILROADS 371

among other things, a pamphlet on Shop Management by Mr. Taylor,
which in some way had come to my attention years before, and by which
I had been much impressed when I read it. I also had in mind an
evening I had spent with Mr. H. L. Gantt discussing the methods
of developing efficiency by him in one of the cotton mills. And I
had generally in mind those efforts in improved efficiency which cer-
tain of my clients, who were manufacturers, had been conducting.

I then arranged to see Mr. Emerson, and talked with him con-
cerning the possibilities of presenting to the Interstate Commerce
Commission the facts concerning possible increases in efficiency and
railroad management.

Mr. Emerson gave me such data as he had available, and I ques-
tioned him carefully as to such other persons who in his opinion,
would be most helpful along these lines. He spoke to me of Mr.
Gantt, and particularly of Mr. Taylor; and from his office I called
up Mr. Taylor asking for an interview. It was cheerfully granted,
and I immediately went to Philadelphia to discuss the situation with
him. This interview was followed by several others. And it was
largely through Mr. Taylor or Mr. Gantt that I got in touch with
Mr. Cooke, Mr. Barth, Mr. Hathaway, Mr. Dodge, Mr. Towne,
and others directly interested in what came to be called Scientific
Management; and secured their cooperation in adequately presenting
the subject before the Interstate Commerce Commission.

I quickly recognized that in Mr. Taylor I had met a really
great man — great not only in mental capacity, but in character,
and that his accomplishments were due to this fortunate combination
of ability and character.

For several years previous to these rate hearings Taylor
had been perplexed to know what to call his system. He
never approved of its receiving his own name. " Functional
management," used by him for a period, finally was discarded
as not comprehensive enough. He felt that " task manage-
ment " better described the idea and used it repeatedly, but
many of his associates came to object that the word task had
too severe a sound. As far back as 1895, in A Piece-Rate

372 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Systemy he had spoken of " scientific rate-fixing," and in his
paper of 1903, Shop Management y he had referred repeatedly
to " scientific time study." Gradually in his talks at Boxly
he fell into the habit of referring casually to " scientific
management," and we have seen that in November, 1909, he
wrote to a member of the A.S.M.E. that he had in mind the
preparation of a paper " on the philosophy of modern scientific
management."

Now, in October, 19 10, Brandeis had a conference with
Gantt and several other engineers including Frank B. Gilbreth
and Robert T. Kent, and at this conference, held in Gantt's
New York apartments, the question came up as to what the
system they all had in mind should be called. " Efficiency,"
" Functional Management," and " Taylor System " were some
of the names formally considered and rejected. Then was
suggested the phrase Taylor for several years had been using
casually, and all present agreed that Brandeis could not do
better, in speaking of the system at the rate hearings, than to
call it Scientific Management.

Following the popularity given to this phrase at the rate
hearings, Taylor himself made bold to use it formally j but
it can be said that he continued to cherish a certain distaste for
it, and this because he feared not merely that it had a pre-
tentious sound, but that its connotations would seem academic
to most people.

In one of the conferences Brandeis had with him, that
gentleman was put through the regular system to which the
Boxly pilgrims were subjected. That is to say, he was required
to keep silent for about two hours while Taylor talked to him.
We believe that Mr. Brandeis was rather restive under this
obligation to enact all by himself the role of a public meeting;
several times he was on the point of breaking in with questions,
and to keep him in order Taylor had to hold up an admonishing
finger.

THE RAILROADS 373

In writing to Admiral Goodrich in January, 191 1, about
the rate hearings, Taylor went on to say:

Since December ist, ten different editors of magazines have been
over to my house to look into the general principles of scientific man-
agement, and to see it in operation in Philadelphia, and many articles
now are being written on it. A great many articles have also ap-
peared in the daily papers, although Ithe railroads, through con-
certed action, have done much to stop the publication of articles in
the daily print.

The railroads have taken their usual arbitrary stand. In writing
their briefs before the Interstate Commerce Commission, they unan-
imously adopted the policy of entirely ignoring scientific manage-
ment. And although I have received hundreds of letters from people
interested in scientific management since the hearings in Washing-
ton, hardly a single railroad man has written on the subject, and
this in spite of the fact that I have a good many friends among
them, and right here in Philadelphia. They are certainly a queer
lot, but they are bound to come to it in time.

Now, though the Interstate Commerce Commission decided
against the railroads, it did so mainly on the ground that the
net earnings of the lines had been so liberal in the past that
they could grant their men higher wages and still pay adequate
dividends. The subject of Scientific Management was dis-
missed with the remark that it was everywhere in an experi-
mental stage, and that it had not been shown that such methods
could be introduced into railway operation to any considerable
extent. However, there is reason to believe that the com-
mission was influenced by the Scientific Management testimony
more than it cared to acknowledge.

Though, as Taylor said, the railroads entirely ignored the
subject of Scientific Management in their briefs, plenty of
attention, beginning in January, 191 1, was given to this subject
by journals devoted to railroad interests, and by railroad offi-
cials in articles appearing in journals of all kinds. In some of

374 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

these articles efficiency experts were denounced for such sins
as " extravagant claims," " neglect of human element," " un-
scientific method and impatience for results," and " neglect of
large factors "j and here we may view a few chickens going
home to roost with those men who had been promising Taylor
results, minus Taylor caution, patience, and thoroughness.

Probably the best defense made for the railroads against
the charge of inefficiency was that they were helpless in the
presence of the labor unions which, dominating their em-
ployees, were antagonistic to efficiency methods. That this was
largely a valid defense, Taylor later was made to realize when
some of his associates were sounded as to the possibility of
reorganizing certain railway repair shops j after studying the
situation, the engineers declined the task, having only too much
reason to believe that the shops where they worked would
become a mark for every union man on the line. The fact is,
however, that wholly apart from their fear of the labor unions,
railway officials as a class were contemptuous of the principles
and methods for which Taylor stood.

Much light on the general railroad situation is cast by an
experience Taylor had with the master mechanic of one of
the leading eastern systems when, in the latter part of 191 1,
he was appealing to men who had used his system to testify
before that Special House Committee. In a letter written by
him in July, 191 2, to L. P. Alford, of the A.S.M.E. Sub-
Committee on Economic Administration, he, referring to this
highly-exceptional railway official, said:

Mr. used our methods for several years while he was mas-
ter mechanic of the side lines of the R.R., with headquarters

at . He did really a wonderful piece of work in getting all

of the repairs of the locomotives made on piece work, some twenty
different types of locomotives being repaired on the side lines. He
showed me, in fact, several books containing some 120,000 different
piece-work prices for repairing locomotives.

THE RAILROADS 375

He came to see me about his work a number of times, and was
most enthusiastic. When, however, the Congressional Committee
wanted to get him to testify as to what he had done in this matter,
he told me that if they forced him to come before them, he would
be compelled to give them no information whatever. They sub-
poenaed him, and when he went there he denied that he ever had done
anything in the line of scientific management whatever. He justi-
fied this to me by saying that if he had come out frankly before the
committee and said just what he had done, that in the first place the
people in his own railroad would have jumped on him; second, that

lots of lines friendly to the lines would have complained that

their master mechanic acknowledged that there was good in scien-
tific management; and third — and most important of all — that the

unions in the R.R. would be very apt to antagonize him,

and, as he said, " it would take three years to recover from the
harm that I would have done to my wo'rk by my testimony."

He told me that his next move in the R.R. would be to

systematize the round houses and the care and running of locomotives,
and attack the whole fuel problem along the lines of scientific man-
agement; but that he did not dare to give this work the name of
scientific management, nor in any way identify it with it.

Documents left by Taylor show that the question of railroad
costs continued to interest him and Brandeis for several years.
In November, 19 13, he sent Brandeis a statement of the
conclusions he and Barth had arrived at in this connection j
and in view of the fact that his approach to the study of
accounting back in the early 1 890's was through what were then
the far-advanced systems of the railroads, the opening para-
graph of his statement of 1913 has special interest.

Almost all railroads [he said] have systems for the analysis of
their expenses, and in many railroads the expense analysis is elaborate
and accurate. So far as I know, however, no railroad has as yet
undertaken to determine, with any degree of accuracy, the cost of
handling passengers or freight. By this I mean that they have not

376 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

(so far as I know) undertaken the determination of these two kinds
of costs with anything like the same accuracy that costs have been
determined in the best manufacturing establishments.

He went on to point out just how he and Barth believed
that the railroads could determine with reasonable accuracy
the cost of " handling at the terminals a ton of high-class and
a ton of low-class freight," and the cost of " handling each
passenger at the terminals," as well as determine " the cost
per ton mile for the different kinds of freight and the cost
per passenger mile of handling passengers." However, in
closing, he issued this warning:

The question as to the value of obtaining costs of this sort will
depend entirely upon what use it is proposed to make of the costs.
My advice to industrial establishments is invariably for them to
scrutinize very carefully the exact use which they make of the
costs which they determine. ... I have known, for instance, cost
keeping to go on in industrial establishments through a long term
of years with all the expense incident to it, and upon investigation
found that the owners and managers of the business were paying
little or no attention to the costs which they figured out. In such a
case as this, it is merely a matter of common sense to abandon the
keeping of costs, and unless the railways were to make active, prac-
tical, money-saving use of the costs figured, it would manifestly
be merely a foolish burden for them to undertake. My experience
has been, however, in industrial establishments, that keeping of costs
with a reasonable degree of accuracy can be made a matter of very
great profit to the company; and there is no reason that I can see
why this should not be equally true in the case of the railroads.

In the letter he wrote to Brandeis when sending his state-
ment, he reinforced the foregoing warning with these words:

I feel very sure that the cost keeping for a railroad is a far more
elementary problem than that for an intricate manufacturing estab-
lishment. . . . There is no question in my mind that it could be

THE RAILROADS 377

made a very considerable money saver to a railway, but I do not
at all feel sure that the average board of directors of a road, or
the average executive staff of a road, w^ould avail themselves of
this opportunity to really diminish their costs.

I look upon it as a matter of far more importance, for example,
that they should take up in detail the study of each small activity
that occurs on their road, and standardize all of these activities, and
in this way reduce their expenses. I am very sure there is a great
opportunity for such an occurrence in railway management.

The first of the editors and writers to seek him out in
consequence of the rate hearings were John S. Phillips and
Ray Stannard Baker, then of the staff of The American
Magazine. After them came many other representatives of
the non-technical press, and so Taylor personally was suddenly
introduced to general fame. And now let us see what the
effect of this was on the paper dealing with the principles of
Scientific Management he had projected as far back as the
fall of 1909.

CHAPTER II

THE PUBLICATION OF HIS LAST PAPER

WHEN IN November, 1909, he wrote to a member of the
Meetings Committee o£ the A.S.M.E. about his projected
paper, he went on to say :

In writing this paper, it will be necessary, or desirable at least,
in order to make the whole matter understood j to use some of the
illustrations which have already been published in one of my former
papers in the A.S.M.E. Now largely for sentimental reasons, hav-
ing presented my other papers to the A.S.M.E., I should also like
to present this paper. How^ever, I fear that it might not meet with
the approval of the Meetings Committee, for the reason that it must
necessarily contain some subject matter which has already been pub-
lished in former papers. It may be, therefore, that the A.S.M.E.
is not the proper society to which to present this matter. I feel that
the philosophy, as it were, of management has not yet been at all
comprehensively dealt with in any paper, and that therefore this
should be brought out. And I also feel that a very large number
of engineers are interested in this side of the question.

The nature of the paper which I write will of course depend very
considerably upon what society, or audience of readers, it is to be
submitted to; therefore I do not wish to start the actual work of
writing it until I feel comparatively sure that it will be wanted
for publication in some one particular society. I am therefore
writing you, as a member of our Meetings Committee, to know
whether, in your judgment, such a paper would be looked upon as
desirable for the A.S.M.E. You understand, of course, that I am
not in the least degree desirous of in any way forcing it upon the
society, but I feel that if our society wants this paper they should
have it.

378

THE PUBLICATION OF HIS LAST PAPER 379

He, of course, would not have addressed this member of the
Meetings Committee if he had not believed that that gentle-
man was friendly to him. As a matter of fact, this gentleman,
who was a professor of mechanical engineering in one of our
leading universities, had just written to Taylor asking per-
mission to quote, in some lectures he was about to deliver, from
Taylor's earlier writings, and that is how Taylor happened
to broach to him the subject of his new paper. By this member
of the Meetings Committee he was encouraged to prepare and
submit his new paper, and he received even more encourage-
ment from the society's secretary.

His first draft was submitted in January, 19103 and when
the Meetings Committee delayed acting on it, he withdrew
it and rewrote it. In fact, he rewrote it several times j for,
as he told General Crozier, he found this attempt to deal with
the " underlying philosophy " of his system the most difficult
piece of writing he ever had undertaken.

In October, 19 10, when nearly a year had elapsed since
his paper first was submitted and he still was without any word
from the Meetings Committee, he urged that the matter
should be decided one way or the other. In reply 'he was
told that he no longer was president of the society and stood
in exactly in the same position that all the other members did.
In view of the time and money he had given to reorganizing
the society's management, this made him indignant. Referring
to it in a letter to a friend, he said:

This statement is, of course, in most senses perfectly true. I think
it would, however, be a very great misfortune for our Society, and
would make our Society as an individual into a most hoggish and un-
grateful personality, if those people who have rendered especial
favors and services to the Society are going to be treated in all matters
on exactly the same level with people who have done nothing for
the Society beyond paying their dues. . . .

In this case the officers of the Society well know that I am per-

380 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

sonally extremely anxious to have this matter presented to the mem-
bership of our Society. This, as they will realize, for no pos-
sible commercial reason, but merely for a personal or sentimental one.

The long-continued failure of the Meetings Committee to
act had all the appearance of a studied discourtesy due to the
dislike and fear of Taylor in the A.S.M.E. to which reference
has been made. It is certain that for some reason the college
professor on the Meetings Committee who encouraged Taylor
to prepare his paper at length turned around and went out of
his way in efforts to make Taylor appear ridiculous for calling
his system scientific and to discredit him generally.

Now came the rate hearings and the flocking of the magazine
people to Boxly to learn about Scientific Management. And as
Taylor had no skill in ringing the changes on a theme, he in
his talks to these representatives of the non-technical press gave
them the substance of the paper he had prepared for the
A.S.M.E. This fact frankly was communicated by him to the
Meetings Committee, in the hope they would view it as a
reason why the society should publish his paper promptly, if
at all J but apparently its only effect was to stiffen their resolu-
tion to ignore him. However, it is only fair to point out that
there was one member of the then-existing Meetings Com-
mittee who. had no part in this petty business. As early as
October i, 1910, William H. Bryan wrote of his own volition
to Taylor: " I want to take this opportunity to advise you that
I am not at all in harmony with the action of the Meetings
Committee in withholding acceptance of your paper on ^ Scien-
tific Management.' I am heartily in favor of its acceptance,
and have repeatedly said so. It is of course, no secret that
I have been the one lone * insurgent ' in the committee for
some time past."

As the year 191 1 approached, Taylor's appeals to the com-
mittee either to accept or return his paper became more fre-

THE PUBLICATION OF HIS LAST PAPER 381

quent, and the reason for this was that two general periodicals,
The American Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly ^ had taken
an interest in his paper. It was brought to his attention that,
at least until a time then recent, it was not considered good
form for technical men to use lay mediums for the exposition
of their ideas. He gave this 'due consideration, but found
that the prevailing opinion among his friends was that Scientific
Management now could be best promoted by laying it before
the general public, not merely because in this way the largest
number of business men and working people most quickly
would be reached, but because the benefits accruing to the
consumer from the scientific management of industry were
equal to the benefits derived by the employer and employee.
On January 3, 191 1, having decided to permit The American
Magazine to publish it, Taylor formally withdrew his paper
from the A.S.M.E. In coming to this decision, he showed due
regard for the " ethics " of his profession by having printed
a special pamphlet edition for distribution among the members
of the A.S.M.E. before the paper should appear in The
American Magazine. As for the interesting reason that led
him to prefer The American Magazine to The Atlantic
Monthly^ they will be found in this quotation from a letter
written by him to an associate:

I have no doubt that the Atlantic Monthly would give us a better
audience from a literary point of view than we could get from the
American Magazine. But the readers of the Atlantic Monthly con-
sist probably very largely of professors and literary men, who would
be interested more in the abstract theory than in the actual good
which would come from the introduction of scientific management.

On the other hand, I feel that the readers of the American
Magazine consist largely of those who are actually doing the prac-
tical work of the world. The people whom I want to reach with
the article are principally those men who are doing the manufactur-
ing and construction work of our country, both employers and em-

382 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

ployees, and I have an idea that many more persons of that kind
would be reached through the American Magazine than through the
Atlantic Monthly.

In considering the best magazine to publish the paper in, I am
very considerably influenced by the opinion I have formed of the
editors vi'ho have been here to talk over the subject; and of these
Ray Stannard Baker was by far the most thorough and enthusiastic
in his analysis of the whole subject. He looked at all sides in a
way which no other editor dreamed of doing. He even got next to the
workingmen and talked to them at great length on the subject.
I cannot but feel, also, that the audience which reads the work of
men of his type must be an intelligent and earnest audience.

Mr. , who has just been here, suggested that among a

certain class of people the American Magazine is looked upon as a
muck-raking magazine. I think that any magazine which opposed the
" stand-patters " and was not under the control of the moneyed pow-
ers of the United States would now be classed among the muck-
rakers. This, therefore, has no very great weight with me.

The Principles of Scientific Managementy preceded by a
personal sketch of Taylor by Ray Stannard Baker, was pub-
lished in three issues of The American Magazine y beginning
in March, 191 ij and then, along with Shop Management (but
separately), was brought out in book form by Harper &
Brothers. Writing in April, 191 1, to Colonel E. D. Meier,
then the president of the A.S.M.E., Taylor said:

As an example of the loss in money to our Society through the
publishing of myi recent paper through a different channel than
our Proceedings, I am in daily receipt of letters from members of
the A.S.M.E. to whom I mailed copies of the special edition of the
book, asking me where they can get additional copies. These re-
quests run all the way from a single copy to as many as fifty copies,
for distribution among their friends and employees, etc. The edition
which I got out was limited in numbers, and I am therefore obliged
to refer these men to Harper & Brothers for the book.

THE PUBLICATION OF HIS LAST PAPER 383

What led him to call Colonel Meier's attention to these facts
was a letter he received from the Colonel about the organiza-
tion, in this spring of 191 1, of a separate society by a goodly
number of A. S. M. E. members who found it increasingly
difficult to get any papers on the subject of management
through the Meetings Committee. Under the leadership of
Frank Gilbreth and Robert T. Kent, these insurgent engi-
neers held their first meetings in Keene's chop house in New
York, and out of their deliberations came the organization at
first called the Society to Promote the Science of Management,
and after Taylor's death, the Taylor Society. At first Tay-
lor did not approve of this separate organization j his idea
being that papers on management should be prepared pri-
marily, not for those who already were converted to the idea
that there could be such a thing as a science of management,
but for the unconverted. A little later, however, he gladly
accepted honorary membership in the separate society, and
came to see that such an organization indeed had a broad field
of usefulness.

When Shof Management and The Princifles of Scientific
Management appeared in book form, they called forth some
classic examples of the horrors of book reviewing. Here,
among other things, is what a leading Boston newspaper had
to say about Shop Management:

In his whole argument the author takes for granted one premise
which he cannot safely do. He supposes that labor is always desirous
of increasing its efficiency. He overlooks the fact that in too many
cases the aim of the workingman is not to increase his output, even
though he may increase his wage thereby, but to prolong his job,
to make as much work as possible for as many fellow-laborers as
possible.

Taylor's emotions upon reading this may be imagined. It
is curious also that while a religious journal feared that his

384 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

books spoke for " only another method of increasing the out-
put without resulting in any improvement in the condition
of the workingman," an industrial journal was sure they
spoke for " neither a science nor an art, but simply a set of
ethical propositions and moral aspirations."

It has been said that, by reason of the attentions Taylor
received from representatives of the non-technical press be-
ginning in the fall of 1910, he suddenly was introduced to
general fame. We shall see, however, that he had not the
least difficulty in taking it for what it was worth, no more
and no less.

CHAPTER III

THE CROWDED YEAR OF 1911

WE believe that it speaks very well for the keenness
of the general editorial and writing fraternity
that, without assistance, it promptly recognized
that, although he had not appeared at the rate hearings, the
big man behind this (to it) new and interesting Scientific
Management movement was Frederick W. Taylor. Despite
the fact that their attention to him aroused in some of his
technical brothers much anger and jealousy, and in certain
quarters systematic efforts were made to switch the limelight
off him and on to some other man who doubtless was sure
he could use the limelight in his business, these journalists
continued to seek Taylor outj and it would appear that of all
who visited him none failed to be charmed by his personality
and, like Brandeis, impressed with the rare combination in him
of ability and character.

Certainly, from the editorial point of view, his attitude was
quite correct. He neither courted the limelight nor avoided
it. He frankly was desirous of exploiting his cause in every
proper way. If it was for the good of the cause that he
himself should remain in the background, in the background
he would stay. On the other hand, if it would help the
cause to have himself and his years of indefatigable toil
written up, then " Barkis was willin'."

As the articles about him and his work began to be printed,
it gratified him to have old friends congratulate him on hav-
ing at last come into his own. But he knew how to discount it

38s

386 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

all. He had shrewd suspicions that it was largely a tempo-
rary flare. As early as December, 1 910, he wrote to his friend
and golf crony, Frank L. Babbott : " I have a notion that
the subject is likely to be very much overdone. It is difficult,
however, to realize the great size of the country, and the
fact that after all but comparatively few people have any
interest in these matters which seem vital to us individually."
How sweetly modest he remained in the face of the gen-
eral publicity that came to him personally, we may gather from
a letter he wrote to his friend. Lieutenant Scudder Klyce, then
of the navy's School of Marine Engineering at Annapolis.
He had lectured at this school in April, 19 10, and Lieutenant
Klyce, and incidentally Mrs. Klyce also, thereupon became
ambitious of tracing out the fundamental philosophy of
Scientific Management. Writing to Klyce in June, 191 1,
Taylor said:

I have vaguely felt all along, when I was endeavoring to formu-
late the principles of Scientific Management, that I had not any-
where near reached bottom, and I feel now that your analytical
mind and long years of honest thought in philosophical matters are just
what are needed to tie up our practical results and the plain every day
formulae to the true fundamental theory.

There is room for any number of leaders in this movement, and
after reading your letters with a great deal of care, it appears to me
that you are just the man to lead in this more fundamental direc-
tion. I shall be only too delighted to follow you in this, and can
assure you that it will be a matter of pride with me to become one of
your helpers.

The subject is so large and so many-sided that no one man can
dream of corralling the whole of it, and to tell you the truth I
should feel absolutely ashamed to find myself alone as a leader in
these times.

An article by Mrs. Klyce on " Scientific Management and
the Moral Law " was published in The Outlook in November,

THE CROWDED YEAR OF 191 1 387

191 1. Whatever it may signify, it would seem to be the fact
that all along women as a sex showed marked ability quickly
to appreciate Taylor's work and especially his character.

The " notion " he early expressed to Babbott that the sub-
ject of efficiency was likely to be " very much overdone "
proved to be another example of his prescience. The flood
of loose talk about efficiency, the grand rush of business men
to get efficient quick, or rather to make their employees get
efficient quick — all this amused him, even while it caused
him to shake his head. In January, 191 1, he wrote to W. R.
Warner, a past president of the A. S. M. E.:

I am afraid that many people will be doomed to disappointment
in their efforts to change rapidly from the old to the new type of
management, since of necessity a great deal of time is involved in
making the change. It is impossible to change the mental attitude
of both the workmen and the management in any short time, and
there are many people who are unwilling to go into any enterprise
which involves several years of time and hard work.

Efficiency societies in 1 9 1 1 were formed almost over night.
The attitude Taylor assumed from the beginning toward these
societies is indicated in this letter he wrote in February, 191 5,
to E. C. Wolf, of The 'Ladies Home Journal:

Answering yours of February 9th regarding the organization of a
Philadelphia Efficiency Society, I hardly know what to say, be-
cause I do not wish to discourage any movement in this direction,
and I am entirely unable myself to take any part in a society of
this sort. My whole time is more than taken up in trying to help
the cause of scientific management. I feel that this is as large a
field as I can very well cover. . . .

All the world, of course, wants efficiency now, as it has always
wanted it. This is not, however, a sufficient basis for a group of
men to get together any more than it would be to get together a
society of men, say, to be good. All the world wants to be good.

388 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

It is only when you have some particular scheme for promoting
goodness that people are able to get together profitably.

One great trouble with the Efficiency Society was that

a great army of cranks and charlatans, who wished to make money
out of the new efficiency enthusiasm, joined the society and received
endorsement from its secretary, and printed on their cards " Member
of the Efficiency Society " so as to help them gain customers.

In April, 191 1, he wrote to a friend:

I am in entire agreement with you that before fall the woods will
be full of quacks who are introducing scientific management, and
they will be highly likely to give a black eye to the whole movement
in many cases. However, enough of the good work will survive to
make it continue, and within two or three years the manufacturers
throughout the country will be pretty well alive to the necessity of
getting first-class men to help them in their reorganization.

Repeatedly, after the rate hearings, manufacturers wrote
to him to complain of being imposed upon by " efficiency
engineers," some of whom had been recommended by techni-
cal journals of good standing. Replying to a complaining
letter of this kind, he said:

I am not at all surprised at the experience you had in the applica-
tion of scientific management. About 99 out of 100 men who have
taken up the profession of introducing scientific management are
either plain fakers or men who are merely in the business for the
money they can get out of it.

There are exceedingly few men who have had the large range
of experience necessary to make a substantial success of this work.

It was awkward for Taylor when people wrote to ask him
what he thought of this engineer and that engineer who he
knew had been corrupted by the efficiency hysteria into think-
ing far more of the money he could get than of the service
he could render. It was particularly awkward when he knew

THE CROWDED YEAR OF 191 1 389

that the engineer inquired about was one who was promising
his client Taylor results without the client's having jto go
through the long Taylor process of scientific standardization.
He did not want to be put in the position of condemning
a fellow engineer. A holier-than-thou attitude was to him
utterly abhorrent. He made great allowances for men, es-
pecially when they had a family still to provide for. But
there were engineers whom he could not recommend in justice
to himself, his cause, and the people who wrote him, and his
way out of it usually was to dodge mentioning anyone save his
old friends Barth, Gantt, Hathaway, and Cooke.

In making a marked distinction between Scientific Manage-
ment and the general efficiency craze, he continued to stand
for something definite j something that varied as it was adapted
to particular cases, but always involved a mental revolution of
employer and employee toward their work and toward each
other. The spasms of rage his aloofness from the efficiency
craze stirred up in some quarters would be difficult to ex-
aggerate. A remarkably venomous person was the editor of
a leading engineering magazine, who despite several urgent
appeals, had been unable to induce Taylor to write any
articles for him. As Taylor was not in sympathy with the
then existing course of this magazine, it is doubtful whether
he would have contributed articles to it in any event. At
the same time, when he told the editor that he was unable to
write anything more on the subject of efficiency or Scientific
Management, he but expressed the simple fact. It astonished
him that others could get so much more out of a subject than
he who had devoted his life to it.

A decidedly curious feature of the situation was that for
months the engineering editor to whom we have referred
tried his best to prevent any articles about Taylor from ap-
pearing in the general magazines} the burden of his letters
to the editors of these latter magazines being that Taylor was

390 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

a man of limited vision, and that there was in the field a far j
greater engineer, who thus really was the one to be written '
up. Hardly necessary is it to say that the engineering editor
neglected to mention that this " greater one " was an engineer
whom he had been able to tie up, not only with his magazine,
but with his book-publishing business. Even more curious is
the fact that another man who sought to discredit Taylor with
magazine editors was that college professor who was a member
of the A.S.M.E. Meetings Committee. When in April,
191 1, an article about Taylor and his work by Will Irwin
was announced for publication in The Century Magazlney this
professor addressed to that magazine a protesting letter couched |
in such vague terms that the editor sent him a proof of the
article and asked him to specify his objections. And this was
the professor's reply:

I have your letter of April 8th with article enclosed, and note
your request for detailed criticism. This I am not willing to take the
time to do, but will throw out three ideas for your consideration. In
the first place, Mr. Will Irwin is not an engineer and has
no business writing on engineering topics, however complete may be
his command of magazine English. Second, there is no such thing
possible as the science of management, new or old. Third, there are
many other people far more important than Mr. Fred W. Taylor,
and the article indicates that Mr. Will Irwin believes in the great-
ness of Mr. Taylor because Mr. Taylor himself admits it.

Naturally it did not lessen the bitterness of these enemies
of Taylor's that all their machinations were in vain, and that
the object of their venom, while astonished and depressed that
men occupying their positions could descend to such littleness,
quietly ignored them.

To The Principles, when this paper was published in book
form, Taylor affixed this remarkable but none the less char-
acteristic postscript:

THE CROWDED YEAR OF 191 1 391

To all those who are sufficiently interested in scientific management,
the writer would most heartily extend an invitation to come to his
house when they are in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. He will be
glad to show them the details of scientific management as it is prac-
ticed in several establishments in Philadelphia. Inasmuch as the
greater part of the writer's time is given up to forwarding the cause
of scientific management, he regards visits of this sort as a privilege,
rather than as an intrusion.

In May, 191 1, he wrote to Babbott:

We have all struggled through the spring pretty well. In my case,
however, it has been a very considerable struggle. What with the
very frequent requests to speak before audiences, and with the twenty
or thirty people coming to the house every week, and a correspondence
of thirty or forty letters a day added to my regular and onerous golf
duties, my time has been more than full.

In his augmented mail were many bids for his personal
services, and scores of appeals from executives looking for
competent minor employees, particularly foremen. The re-
ply he made to these latter appeals must have given many an
executive a shock: Why always be looking to other establish-
ments for men? Why not develop your own?

Prior to 1 9 1 1 he had done little public speaking apart from
the lectures he gave at Harvard and those on " Success " he
delivered to engineering students. During 191 1, the fifty-
fifth year of his age, his schedule of lectures was a heavy one.
Many invitations he had to decline outright, and in some
cases it was agreed that he would better not attempt to speak.
This excerpt from a letter addressed by him in 1909 to the
Boston Merchants' Association, expresses the attitude he con-
tinued to take generally:

To convince even the most interested man that the new type of
management must of necessity be overwhelmingly better than the old,
takes me not less than two hours.

392 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

I have no ability whatever at making an ornamental or amusing
address, and my interest in this subject is so vital that I should vastly
prefer to spend tvi^o hours and a half in carrying unqualified convic-
tion to the minds of five or ten men, and in endeavoring to make these
men really enthusiastic and deeply interested in what I am sure is to be
the management of the future, than I should be to deliver an address
of merely passing interest to 500 or 1,000 men. I have therefore
practically given up attempts at making short addresses on this subject.

He knew it seemed unreasonable to expect people to listen
to him for two hours, and he was wont to refer to his lecture
trips as being devoted to " talking 'em to death," but he gave
you fair warning of his position in advance.

He had two unpleasant experiences in 191 1 while lecturing.
The first was in May at the annual dinner of the American
Booksellers' Association in New York, and the second was in
December at the annual dinner of the Illinois Manufacturers'
Association in Chicago. On each of these occasions his audi-
ence gave unmistakable signs of being wearied, and he brought
his address to an abrupt close. These, it would appear, were
the only audiences he ever failed to hold. Even if in his
other audiences there were many persons who were disap-
pointed by his use of the same illustrations of his principles
that they had read in his books (notably the work of the
Bethlehem pig-iron handlers), they were likely to be gripped
by his personality. His failure to hold his audiences at those
dinners in New York and Chicago he attributed to the fact
that the men who attended them did so with the single idea
of having a good time. After his experience in Chicago, he
made it an iron-clad condition of his speaking at a dinner
that no wine was to be served.

His address in October at the Tuck School at Dartmouth
introduced there a three-day " conference on Scientific Man-
agement." Organized by Dr. H. S. Person, the school's di-
rector, it was the first attempt to bring together business men

THE CROWDED YEAR OF 191 1 393

and engineers interested in management About 300 business
men attended 5 coming from as far north as Toronto, as far
south as Washington, and as far west as Minneapolis. Follow-
ing Taylor's address there were addresses by such leaders in
the Scientific Management movement as Gantt and Dodge j
and it was here that Henry P. Kendall read his classic paper
on " Types of Management : Unsystematized, Systematized,
and Scientific."

Despite the efficiency hysteria and the discreditable course
of many efficiency engineers, the year 1 9 1 1 saw, on the whole,
a great impetus given to Taylor's cause. Not only were many
new converts made, but old converts had their wavering faith
restored. As Scientific Management, like virtue, involves con-
tinuous effort, continuous striving for an ideal which at best
can be only approximated, people can indeed become weary
of it. And the significance of the year 191 1 is that, human
nature being what it is, comparatively few business men can
be expected to undertake and maintain this effort and striving
until the business world as a whole is forced to it and en-
couraged to keep at it through the power of public opinion.

When it is considered that, in addition to all the other
things Taylor did in this year, he was required to make many
trips in connection with his service to the navy and army, and
that it was in this year also that, the labor unions opening
fire on him, he organized the case for Scientific Management
at the hearings of the Special House Committee, it will be
realized that it was for him a crowded year. But Frederick
Taylor, the engineer, was above all a man. And when his
wife broke down in health about Christmas time in 191 1,
he had no difficulty in deciding where first of all his duty lay.
Immediately his primary object in life became that of help-
ing to restore his wife to health. Every engagement he made
from now on was made contingent upon her condition and
her need of him.

CHAPTER IV

TOILING ON TOWARD THE EVENING

SEVERAL times in his later years he was forced to
decline appointments to office. He promptly dis-
couraged certain tentative steps that were taken to
have him made president of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Another appointment he declined was that to
the Federal Tariff Commission. He had all he could do,
with his waning strength, to carry on his Scientific Manage-
ment campaign. When in 1909 Professor and Mrs. Hollis
invited him to stay at their home while he was in Cambridge,
he felt he could not impose himself on them, saying: " When
I am away from home I am very apt to get sleepless, and to
avoid this I have to lie down for a considerable time every
day." Even when he was at home, he now frequently felt
the need of lying down in the daytime.

In November, 191 1, Rudolph Blankenburg, Philadephia's
" Old War Horse of Reform," was elected Mayor of that
city, and immediately thereafter he urged Taylor to serve
as Director of Public Works. Here again Taylor had to
decline. However, he was most punctilious in discharging
his duties as a citizen (he would, for example, travel long
distances and otherwise seriously inconvenience himself in
order to vote), and he desired to do all he could to make
the reform administration a success. Not only this, but he
here saw an opportunity to demonstrate something of the
applicability of the principles of Scientific Management to
public undertakings. So he suggested that his friend and co-

394

TOILING ON TOWARD THE EVENING 395

worker, Morris L. Cooke, be made Director of Public Works j
and this suggestion being adopted, Cooke served in that office
during the four years of the Blankenburg administration.

Incidentally the impression made by Taylor in his latter
years upon a man like Rudolph Blankenburg should be of
interest:

Mr. Taylor was to me a paradox. On one hand we find his rugged
intellect blasting its way up through layer after layer of conventions
formed by generations of prejudice, tradition and ignorance until
he became recognized as perhaps the world's foremost industrial leader.
When truth was at stake, he was resourceful, robust and tireless. The
problem once even dimly visioned he pursued with the zest of a
hunter until he conquered. On the other hand, those whose contacts
with him were, like my own, only casual and who went to him as
converts, rather than to be converted, could hardly sense his power.
He was born and bred to a gentle manner. His sweet smile and
courtly bearing were only the surface indications of an innate and
broad spreading sympathy and kindliness. He knew he had much to
give and he gave it with a generosity which knew no limits.^

As Cooke found Philadelphia's Department of Public
Works about the worst run plant he ever had been in, and he
had only four years to work in, he was forced to devote most
of his time to effecting what might be called ordinary im-
provements. Still, to such work as that of cleaning filter sand
he was able to apply the principles of Scientific Management
pretty thoroughly.

As soon as he took office in January, 191 2, he revived an
old function of his office which had to do with superintending
the lighting of the streets. He found that the Philadelphia
Electric Company was charging a rate greatly in excess of
what other companies were charging in other cities j was, in
fact, a striking example of the policy of making money
through large unit profits rather than through an extensive

^ Address by Mayor Blankenburg at Taylor Memorial Meeting,

396 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

sale. The first year, by agreement with Cooke, the company
reduced its bill to the city by $80,000. The agreement also
provided for a further reduction the next yearj Cooke con-
senting to a gradual reduction as being reasonable under all
the circumstances. However, when the company the next year
would agree only to a small further reduction, he took legal
action. As the City Attorney could get no appropriation for
this purpose from the local legislative bodies, which remained
under control of the old political gang, Cooke was forced to
bring suit as a taxpayer. This he did along with two other
taxpayers. The outcome of the suit was a reduction in the
rate which saved the city about $150,000 a year and private
consumers about $900,000 a year, or more than a million
dollars in all.

In all his work for the city Cooke enjoyed Taylor's sym-
pathy and support. At his request, Taylor served on the
board that inquired into the contracts made by the previous
administration. Cooke consulted Taylor as to his more im-
portant appointments, and between them they induced many
experts to serve the city. To the great scandal of the local
politicians, these experts were employed regardless of where
their homes were, and for fees ranging from nothing to
$60,000.

When Cooke brought suit against the Philadelphia Electric
Company, he had great difficulty in getting experts to testify
for the city. His investigation showed that electric light and
power interests throughout the country were closely affiliated
in an organization known as the National Electric Light Asso-
ciations, and that all but a few experts in this field either were
in the habit of being retained by this solid interest or did
not consider it discreet to appear in opposition to it. And
Cooke found that similar situations existed in connection with
the organizations known as the National Commercial Gas
Association and the American Electric Railway Association.

TAYLOR INSPECTING CONCRETE WORK

TOILING ON TOWARD THE EVENING 397

Thus he organized a Public Utilities Bureau, which advised
and furnished experts for municipalities in connection with
their dealings with their local utility companies. To this
bureau Taylor lent the support of his name and his money.
And when Cooke, on account of some of these activities of
his, was attacked by powerful representatives of public utility
corporations at a meeting in 19 14 of the A. S. M. E., his
sole but able defender was Taylor. By disinterested members
of the A. S. M. E. we are told that never did Taylor's capacity
for dispassionate statement and weight of character appear to
better advantage than on this occasion.

There were no more pilgrimages to Boxly after 191 1.
Most of the time the Taylors were awayj it being necessary
to free Mrs. Taylor as much as possible from housekeeping
cares. In June, 19 12, when Taylor lectured at Hobart Col-
lege, Geneva, New York, he there had conferred on him
the honorary degree of doctor of laws, and in the latter part
of November of this year he was able to go west on another
speaking trip. He was now steadily improving his lecture,
or, at all events, popularizing it. He cut out the pig-iron
handlers, and boiled the lecture down so that its delivery did
not take much more than an hour and a half. He introduced
some humor; pretty grim, to be sure, but it went finely with
his personality. Likewise he was becoming adept in tossing
off remarks that were sure to " get a hand." Such, for ex-
ample, as this: "Whatever the workingmen of this country
are or whatever they are not, they are not damn fools. Put
that right down." While we must believe that his cause
suffered from too much popularization, we must admire the
success he had in commending himself so heartily to our very
democratic friends of the Middle West. Here is a letter, full
of the fine flavor of that section, he received from one of the
broom manufacturers whom he addressed in December, 19 12,
in Davenport, Iowa:

398 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

I trust that you had a pleasant journey home, and that you found
Mrs. Taylor's condition satisfactory.

I cannot tell you how much your address was appreciated by every
man who was fortunate enough to be present.

I recall the remark you made that you disliked to speak to asso-
ciations for fear you would tire them. Now, Mr. Taylor, you should
dismiss any such thought from your mind. I believe you spoke to us
for over an hour and a half, and I didn't notice any one leaving the
room, except myself to inquire what time you would have to start to
make your train, and I got back very quickly.

You will remember when your time was up and you remarked
about it, a man in the back of the room called out, " Take some more
time, Mr. Taylor." This was our dear friend, O. T. Merkle, of the
Merkle-Wiley Broom Co., Paris, 111., one of the larger concerns.
You replied to him, " You wouldn't sit it out." Well, you uncon-
sciously handed him a good one. Merkle was never known to sit out
anything before. He is usually never in the room over twenty or
thirty minutes, but you held him, and he hollered for morCy
and from the comment I have heard, Merkle expressed the sentiment
of every man in the room.

This is certainly proof positive that you do not tire an association
of manufacturers. Your subject is so interesting and you are so
enthusiastic and convincing, I am sure you would not have tired us
for several hours. This is not an idle compliment, but the exact truth.

Now, Mr. Taylor, it was very kind of you to make this trip and
address us without any compensation, and we appreciate it and thank
you very, very much. Now I have a little favor to ask of you. Will
you please send me your photograph to be reproduced in our trade
paper?

In January, 1913, after addressing the Canadian Club in
Toronto, he was asked by members of the faculty of the
University of Toronto to stay over a day and give the same
talk to their students. Never before having attempted to
speak at length on Scientific Management to an audience made
up entirely of undergraduates, he was doubtful of his ability

TOILING ON TOWARD THE EVENING 399

to hold them, but was persuaded to make the attempt, and
was entirely successful. About a thousand students, probably
the greater number from the engineering section, attended;
and whereas those students had a habit of signifying any
lack of interest they might have in a lecture by scuffling their
feet, they listened to him for nearly two hours without mak-
ing a motion, and then, plying him with questions, compelled
him to give them more.

Now, the only incapacitating illness to which he had been
subject throughout his life was of the nature of what we
commonly call a cold or the grip. In the winter of 19 12-13,
he developed a cold of the bronchial type, which kept him
awake at night coughing. But for a long time he did not
permit this cold to check his activity to any extent. When he
had to travel at night, he engaged a drawing room on the
train, so that his cough would not keep other people awake.
His bronchial cold became serious after he and his wife had
gone to Charleston, South Carolina, to stay there during Feb-
ruary and March. Despite this, he accepted invitations to
speak in March in Indianapolis and Chicago. At the last
moment his Charleston physician compelled him to telegraph
cancelling his engagements. " The doctor says," he later
wrote in explanation, " that a trip on the railway cars would
be a very great risk, in fact, with the probability of pneu-
monia." No one, of course, could then realize it; but we
shall see that he here received a sinister forewarning. The re-
laxation and rest he needed he could not take; and the ironic
feature of it was that, although from the beginning he found
traveling a hardship, the fates had decreed that he should
be exceptional among men in his inability to continue long
in one stay, and that his closing years should be given over
to almost continual traveling.

In the latter part of April, 19 14, soon after he had testi-
fied before the Industrial Relations Commission in Washing-

400 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

ton, he was called on to go out to Milwaukee to address a
meeting which, for the particular purpose of hearing him,
had been arranged by the joint action of the Wisconsin State
Federation of Labor and the Milwaukee Federated Trades
Council J the suggestion of such a meeting having originally
come from Dean Reber of the University of Wisconsin. Here
Taylor again met the Mr. N. P. Alifas, of the Machinists'
Association, who had been prominent in connection with the
agitation at the Rock Island Arsenal, and later was equally
prominent at the hearings of the Special House Committee.
To Taylor's address, Alifas made reply. An idea of his
reply as a whole may be gained from that part of it designed
to answer Taylor's statement that, whereas there were riots
in Manchester, England, when in 1840 the power loom was
introduced into the cotton industry, the weavers fearing that
it would destroy the livelihood of most of them, there were
in 1 9 14 about 265,000 weavers employed in Manchester as
against about 5,000 in 1840. We quote Mr. Alifas from
the report printed and issued by the Executive Board of the
Wisconsin State Federation of Labor:

An illustration has been given here in regard to the weavers
in Manchester, England. There were 5,000 of them and by intro-
ducing the power loom, they would be reduced to 1,500. It was a
very serious thing for those that would be eliminated. I firmly be-
lieve that if the promoters of these inventions had been a little more
concerned about the particular generation in which they were living
— for instance, if they had said: " Here is a mighty fine invention.
We can do the work we formerly had been doing in one-third of
the time. Now you people who have been working twelve hours a
day, will work in shifts, four hours a day, and get the same pay you
have been getting," they would have been showing a proper spirit.

Taylor, you see, had admitted, or appeared to admit, that
the introduction of the power loom had, for the time heingy

TOILING ON TOWARD THE EVENING 401

reduced the number of Manchester weavers from 5,000 to
1,500. It is probable that few would care to deny that Mr.
Alifas was eminently right in thinking that, even if 265,000
weavers eventually did come to be employed in Manchester in
consequence of the introduction of the power loom, this did
not have the retroactive effect of lessening the misfortune of
the 3,500 weavers who in 1840 were thrown out of work.
And it may be that, though managers of the Taylor school
now heartily subscribe to the doctrine that no labor-saving
device, whether mechanical or managerial, should be intro-
duced without due consideration for the working people im-
mediately affected, Taylor himself was so much concerned
with ultimate results that he often failed to give sufficient
heed to the immediate. But when Mr. Alifas went on to
argue that the benefit of the power loom should have gone
completely and immediately to those weavers, and this in the
form of freeing them at once from all but four hours work a
day, it should be plain that between men of his kind and
Taylor there was a vast mental and spiritual gulf which it
was practically hopeless to try to bridge.

After Alifas's formal reply, Taylor was submitted to a
general hectoring, and a man who was present tells us that he
did not stand up under it very well. This is quite believable j
he had no skill when it came to a rough and tumble " argu-
ment " made up of assertions of opinion, and it indeed was
" maddening " for him when the principles he had developed
through years of hard work were directly challenged in a
spirit of whim and caprice. In the official account of the
Milwaukee meeting, the attempt to give a verbal report of
the hectoring of Taylor suddenly is broken oflF with the
naive explanation that " at times the discussion waxed warm
and somewhat confusing for the stenographer." There is
a pleasant allusion to the difficulty of " pinning Mr. Taylor
down," and then follows this:

402 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

In conclusion, we can only sum up the entire matter as a system
that will ultimately require the worker to overtax his energy without
increasing his pay and increase the periods of unemployment, for ex-
perience has taught us that the mental attitude of the employer cannot
be relied upon for the material welfare of the wage earner.

Persuaded to speak at this meeting against his better judg-
ment, Taylor did not entirely regret it, since he felt that he
at least had been able to get before his audience of union men
certain facts that the great majority of them never had heard
before. But he was disgusted with the treatment he received
and particularly with the report of the proceedings by the
Executive Board of the Wisconsin Federation of Labor. This
board was not content to report what he said and what his
opponents said in reply j it must go on to report what his ideas
seemed to be. For example, we read this: " In fact, his idea
seems to be to teach the worker nothing except the quickest
possible way to do a certain job, have the overseer or time-
study man do his thinking for him and make the poor worker
nothing more than a human machine."

His previous experience with labor agitators having been
what it was, Taylor not unnaturally believed that this report
was all of a piece with a campaign of misrepresentation and
calumny against him and his system deliberately entered into
by organized labor in general.

CHAPTER V

ON LABOR LEADERS AND UNIONS

THE reason he had been reluctant to speak at the
Milwaukee labor meeting was that on some of his
lecturing trips in 191 1 and 191 2 he had had joint
debates with labor men and his general experience with them
was most unpleasant. In November, 19 12, he wrote to the
secretary of the Economic Club of Indianapolis:

I have made up my mind never again to enter into a joint debate
with labor leaders on this subject. With one exception, whenever I
have entered into a joint debate with them, they have made asser-
tions about scientific management which are directly the opposite of the
truth, and this gives one the alternative of allowing their false state-
ments to go unchallenged or pointing out the fact that they are lying;
and I am unwilling to accept either of those alternatives.

I regret to say that almost without exception the labor leaders of
this country have agreed to misrepresent scientific management. The
one leader in exception to this is Mr. John Tobin, the head of all the
shoe unions in New England, with whom I have had several joint
debates, very satisfactory in their nature. He truthfully sets forth
the labor side, and of course I have not the slightest objection to this.

He also emphatically declined an invitation from the
Canadian Club of Toronto to enter into a point debate with
Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of
Labor. Referring to Mr. Gompers and his associates, he said:

These men have been invited, over and over again, to come to the
establishments in which scientific management was installed and run-

403

404 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

ning, and examine it for themselves, so that they should be acquainted
with the facts. They have steadily refused to do this, while they
continue to make statements about scientific management which are
directly opposite to the facts.

If any labor leader whatever, who has investigated scientific man-
agement and knows the facts about it, wishes to take objection to
any of the theories connected with it, I have not the slightest objection
to talking with him.

Again he said that he would be glad to appear on the same
platform with a labor leader like John Tobin. " But," he
added, " you would find what this man says very moderate
and truthtelling, and therefore lacking in sensation." An idea
of Tobin's attitude may be gained from this quotation from
the testimony he gave in 19 14 before the Industrial Relations
Commission: " I believe that scientific management, so called,
has been greatly abused by persons who are not scientific. I
do not know whether Mr. Taylor is scientific or not. I am not
prepared to say."

Taylor found that the objections of labor leaders as a group
were one thing, and the objections of the rank and file of
workmen who had not come under his system another thing.
The former objections were mainly cooked upj the latter were
genuine, and could all be attributed to the fear that Scientific
Management, besides throwing large numbers of them out
of work, would take from them the only weapons they had
for fighting their employers. Realizing that their leaders
had been teaching them all their lives that they must restrict
their output and that their employers were always their
enemies, Taylor was very sympathetic with these fears of the
rank and file. In every case, in these years when he was freed
from daily contact with the clashing wills of the shop, he was
highly tolerant of the other fellow's point of view and of
criticism, provided only that the facts were not misrepresented.
In 191 1, he wrote to George Willis Cooke:

ON LABOR LEADERS AND UNIONS 405

Your article of August 24, written for the New York Call [the
Socialist organ] on scientific management, has just come to my at-
tention, and I wish to thank you most warmly for your truthful expo-
sition of scientific management and your thoroughly fair-minded and
candid criticism.

While I cannot agree with some of your criticism, yet the spirit in
which it is made is most admirable, and it is from just such criticism
as yours that people are started on lines of thought which in the end
must lead to progress.

I must confess that I know very little about the principles of social-
ism, and that while I am interested in what I do know, I feel that
very great progress can be made under the wage system as it now ex-
ists, and that my particular work lies in trying to bring about some
part of this progress.

In 191 1, John Mitchell, the labor leader, wrote an article
attacking Scientific Management which was syndicated in news-
papers throughout the country. As this was after he had
failed to take advantage of an invitation to visit plants where
Scientific Management had been installed, Taylor viewed his
course as another piece of evidence that, in consequence of the
adoption of his system by the army's Ordnance Department
and the advertising it received at the rate hearings of 19 10,
there was a general, if informal, agreement among men high
in the counsels of the American Federation of Labor to
condemn his system offhand.

Even William B. Wilson, though he was above taking part
in any campaign of misrepresentation and calumny, declined
to visit any establishment, apart from the Watertown Arsenal,
where the Taylor System was installed when he was at the
head of the investigating committee appointed by the House
of Representatives. Mr. Redfield and Mr. Tilson spent hours
in Taylor establishments, but Mr. Wilson, the labor repre-
sentative, not a single minute. Despite this course of Wilson's,
Taylor continued to have for him, along with such labor

4o6 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

leaders as Tobin, a genuine respect and a warm regard. On
the other hand, he viewed such men as Gompers as mainly
demagogues. And as for most of the lesser labor agitators
with whom he came in contact, his mature judgment of them
was that they were " a set of scamps."

Apparently his attitude toward labor-unionism was perplex-
ing to some people, who found him often subscribing to it in
principle, but usually denouncing it as it was practiced. In
reality his attitude was quite simple. Labor-unionism had
been made necessary by the old aloof, indifferent, and fre-
quently " hoggish " spirit of employers. However, as it had
developed, its general course was as far from being ideal as
was that of the employers which had brought it into being.

There is no reason why labor unions should not be so constituted as
to be a great help both to employers and men [he wrote]. Unfortu-
nately, as they now exist they are in many, if not most, cases a hin-
drance to the prosperity of both.

The chief reasons for this would seem to be a failure on the part
of the workmen to understand the broad principles which affect their
best interests as well as those of their employers. It is undoubtedly
true, however, that employers as a whole are not much better informed
nor more interested in this matter than their workmen.

One of the unfortunate features of labor unions as they now exist
is that the members look upon dues which they pay to the union, and
the time they devote to it, as an investment which should bring them
an annual return, and they feel that unless they succeed in getting
either an increase in wages or shorter hours every year or so, the
money which they pay into the union is wasted. The leaders of the
unions realize this and, particularly if they are paid for their services,
are apt to spend considerable of their time scaring up grievances
whether they exist or not. This naturally fosters antagonism instead
of friendship between the two sides. There are of course, marked
exceptions to this rule; that of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engi-
neers being perhaps die most prominent.^

1 Shop Management, p. 187.

ON LABOR LEADERS AND UNIONS 407

In some notes he prepared for one of his talks in his later
years we read:

Broadly speaking, the methods of scientific management are di-
rectly the opposite of those of the unions. The unions as at present
constituted stand chiefly for war, for enmity; cite Gompers' statement
of yesterday. Scientific Management stands for peace and friendship.
Trade unions full of such words as " demands " and " ultima-
tums." Trade unions honestly believe that the interests of the work-
men are antagonistic to those of their employers, and this leads to
their organization for war, the levelling of their members — pulling
the upper ones down to raise the lower ones up — the boycott, the
beating up of scabs, the dynamiting of buildings. "

He was much opposed to fighting organizations among em-
ployers as he was to those among workmen. Writing in May,
1 9 14, to his friend Richard A. Feiss, the clothing manufac-
turer of Cleveland, who is now one of the most prominent
leaders of the Scientific Management movement, he said:

Answering your question as to the desirability of retaining mem-
bership in the National Manufacturers' Association, this association,
as well as the Mutual Trades Association, if I understand them cor-
rectly, are largely organizations in which a large number of com-
panies are combined to fight the unions.

Inasmuch as you have no occasion to fight the unions and are
doing better by your workmen than the unions possibly can, it would
seem to me unwise to belong to any of these fighting organizations.

I have invariably advised my friends, after coming under Scien-
tific Management, to resign all connection with such associations;
that is, as soon as they feel that their employees are heartily with them
in what they are doing.

From his position that the restriction of output fostered
by labor-unionism was the great curse of the industrial world
of his day, he could not be budged. In June, 191 1, Fred J.
Miller, of the Union Typewriter Company, and one of

408 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Taylor's active supporters in the A.S.M.E, wrote him among
other things:

One of our factory superintendents, who is in a position to know
what is going on, reports that in the town in which the factory is
situated the membership of the Union of Machine Workers has
recently been more than doubled and that the chief persuader used in
the work of recruiting consisted of statements taken from your
articles and addresses and pointing out how the work has in many
cases been done with from one half to one quarter of the number
of employees previously engaged.

Having been myself engaged more or less in propaganda work
for twenty years, I fully understand that things of this sort are to
be expected. However, I have considered that I ought to give you
the information which has come to me bearing upon this matter, and
I would suggest that all statements charging workingmen with de-
liberate soldiering or with a desire to restrict output should be care-
fully guarded, and in fact my opinion is that the less there is said
about that the better; because while it is true that there is some
soldiering done I am convinced that it is by no means general, and
those who are already working as hard as men ought to be asked to
work will only think that this system will demand that they should
work still harder.

To this Taylor replied:

I am sorry to have to disagree with you as to the undesirability of
calling the attention of this country to the fact that soldiering is
one of the greatest evils among its workmen. I look upon this
deliberately going slow as the worst evil now that faces the country,
and instead of keeping quiet about it, the press ought to get busy
and teach the people what this means for the country.

It has become the curse of England right now, and we are likely
to follow in their footsteps unless there is a large amount of talking
done. I found recently in my talk on the East Side in New York,
that perhaps twenty questions from twenty different men indicated
a belief on the part of the workmen present at that meeting that the
only solution for them lay in soldiering.

ON LABOR LEADERS AND UNIONS 409

Returning to the attack, Miller said:

I think it should be remembered that whatever belief there is
among workingmen that restriction should be practiced is encour-
aged by very generally taught doctrines and practices of those who
are not workingmen.

The talk about " over-production " with the short time running
or shutting down of factories undoubtedly has a direct effect upon the
belief of workingmen that some restriction of output is justified.

The Protective Tariff theory is based upon the idea that there is
a certain amount of work to be done and that if foreigners do any
of that for us, there will be so much less to be done here.

The Wage Fund theory also sustains this idea; you will recall
that according to this theory there is a certain fund which can be
used for the employment of capital and labor in productive enter-
prises, and that when that fund is fully employed no more labor
can be utilized.

I am not now discussing these various theories and do not assert that
they are either sound or fallacious, — but only calling your atten-
tion to the fact that they seem to be based upon the same idea and
more or less justify the workingman's idea that the length of the
work day should be shortened and that the production should in that
and other ways be to some extent restricted. I do not believe that
any amount of talking or newspaper advice to workingmen will
have any good effect, but believe it will have generally the contrary
effect; I do believe, however, that the introduction of Scientific Man-
agement and the actual demonstration of a better way will have a
good effect.

In reply to this second letter, Taylor reiterated what he
had said before, and added:

Personally, I have not met a single workman during the last year
who, when I talked the matter over soberly with him personally, did
not acknowledge that he was deliberately soldiering in his work.
You know that I entirely agree with you that there is great justifica-
tion for this under existing systems of management. Nevertheless,

410 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

I think that it is the duty of all men interested in progress in this
country to denounce the deliberate restriction of output as one of the
great menaces to the prosperity of our country, and until our news-
papers and magazines take this matter up in earnest I feel that we
shall not be doing our duty towards the working people. A

From his early Midvale days, when he had experience with
many English workmen, he felt that England was destined
to su£Fer terribly unless public opinion in that country was
aroused to the need of freeing its industry from output-restrict-
ing trades-unionism. In August, 191 1, he wrote to his friend
Babbott, who then was visiting in England:

From the detailed accounts which we read in the newspapers, you
must now be seeing the real thing in the way of a strike in England.
To my mind the flabby way in which the English government and
the English people have treated this subject has tended to bring on
just such troubles as they are having there, and I trust that we will
find some way in this country to avoid this condition. Which so
closely resembles that of war.

To J. Ellis Barker, an English publicist, he wrote in
November, 19 13:

When I was last in England, I did everything I could to try to
persuade a number of editors of your papers that it was their duty
to start a crusade against this great fallacy [that it is in the interests
of workmen to restrict their output], but I met with no success.
They are all afraid of impairing the circulation of their papers,
and informed me that this was a matter which should be taken up in
tracts.

He was moved in 19 13 to write to Barker by an article of
that gentleman's entitled " Great Britain's Poverty and Its
Causes " which then had just been published in the Fortnightly
Review. This article confirmed what Taylor believed must
be the consequence in England of restriction of output. In

ON LABOR LEADERS AND UNIONS 411

sending a copy of the article to John R, Commons, when that
gentleman was serving on the United States Commission of
Industrial Relations, he said:

Please note the terrible fact stated in Mr. Barker's article that
two-thirds of all the people of England who have passed 65 years of
age live on less than $2.50 per week. This is a horrible condition.

In his letter to Barker from which we already have quoted,
he also said:

No amount of readjustment of the joint rewards of labor and
capital can make the English workingmen materially better off.
Their only hope lies in an increase in individual output throughout
the country, and your statistics ought to be of immense help in con-
vincing the Enghsh people of this fact.

And he added:

Let me assure you that at no time in my life have I had any
prejudice against the English workman. Far from it, because I
myself come from a long line of English ancestors on both sides.

It may be mentioned that when James Bryce was British
Ambassador at Washington, he became much interested in what
he called Taylor's " schemes for reducing needless labour."
They corresponded and met occasionally, and on one of
Taylor's visits in England he carried letters of introduction
from Bryce.

Apparently he became less and less in sympathy with labor-
unionism as time went on. He hardly would have been human
i'i he had not been affected by the warfare begun in 191 1
against his system by the chiefs of the labor movement here.
Another thing that helped to put him out of sympathy with
labor-unionism in general was the attitude it often took that
labor was the whole thing. In 19 14, he wrote to George lies,
of the Manitoba Free Press of Winnipeg:

412 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Thank you very much for sending me a copy of the Free Press
of January 6, containing your most interesting and original editorial,
" Truth in Cold Storage."

It is an entirely new view of things to consider the effect of a
strike of inventors and discoverers. You are, however, entirely out
of fashion in calling the attention of the public to the fact that any
men, except those who work with their hands, deserve consideration.
The style now is to claim that all except the men who work with
their hands are robbers of the rest of the world.

A year before this, H. B. Woolston, of the New York State
Factory Investigating Commission, wrote to ask him if he
knew of " any method whereby it can be found just what value
the laborer adds to the product, that is, his real earning
capacity."

The subject which your commission is investigating [he replied]
is of course of the very greatest interest, but I doubt whether I am
able to add anything, either to the knowledge which you already
possess or in a suggestive way to the line of thought which you should
follow.

It is clear, however, that in almost every type of work the laborer
works not merely with his hands, but uses implements or machines of
some sort. In most cases, these implements and machines represent
the accumulated experience and ingenuity of generations of men.
It needs of course no argument to indicate that without the fruits
of this accumulated experience and ingenuity, the world would be
a poor place to live in.

Each time, then, that an endeavor is made to determine exactly how
much the individual laborer adds to the value of the product which
he — together with the machine and his implements — is producing,
it would seem to be necessary to measure as nearly as possible the value
and weight of the work of preceding generations, as embodied in the
tools and in machines which the laborer is using.

I doubt whether it would be in any way possible to accurately
measure the exact relative value of these two great factors, nor the
ever present human factor — after all, the all important one — and

ON LABOR LEADERS AND UNIONS 413

yet without assigning its proper weight to each of these factors your
answer could not be obtained.

Again, there come in several other factors which need secondary
consideration.

First, the help which the laborer receives through his housing, his
light, heat, and general surroundings, which in 99 cases out of 100
he has not supplied himself, but which represent the work and
materials supplied by other people.

Second, the help, advice, supervision, etc., which he receives
from those who are in general guiding his work, and from other
workmen around him.

Third, in addition to these, the actual capital invested in the ma-
terials with which he works and which pays him for his labor and
gets its return only after the product is sold. At times, as you are
aware, this capital is employed without return for as much as from
six months to a year.

He was firm in believing that there was no place under
Scientific Management for labor-unionism as it was practiced
in his day. In 191 1 he had some correspondence with Miss
Edith Wyatt, a social worker and writer who, on her own
accord, had investigated the conditions of working girls and
women in Scientific Management factories, and was so im-
pressed by the improvement in their condition that she readily
consented to testify in favor of Scientific Management at the
hearings of the Special House Committee.

You realize of course [Taylor wrote to her] that I am not op-
posed to labor unions. Their proper field as they now exist is, I
feel, outside of scientific management. I am sure that labor unions
(active unions, at least) as they are now constituted would seriously
interfere with the progress of scientific management.

Unfortunately, they cater to the poorest and most incompetent
workers in the union and would prevent the scientific selection of
the workmen, and insist upon so restricting output that the great
benefits coming from the new management would be lost. They

414 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

would substitute a vote of the majority for scientific investigation
and analysis — war for cooperation.

I can conceive of a union that would be most helpful to scien-
tific management, but I have not yet seen this union.

In the course of a discussion at the A.S.M.E., he said:

I think the time will come when trades-unionists will realize that
their true and permanent road toward prosperity lies in so educating
themselves that they will be able and willing to do more work in
return for larger pay, rather than in fighting to do less work for
the same pay or the same work for larger pay.

In February, 19 13, just before President Wilson's first term
began, he wrote to his friend Lieutenant Klyce:

I am very much in the same position that you are regarding
the sad and unfortunate fight that has been going on for years past
between capital and labor. I, however, have a very great confi-
dence in the common sense of the average American citizen, and
therefore do not anticipate any violent outbreak. I think that the
coming Congress, owing considerably to the heat of the last cam-
paign, is likely to swing too far towards socialistic legislation. I
am sure that the labor unions are likely to have a far greater in-
fluence with our legislators during the next four years than in the-
past, so that some very bad legislation may result; but I hardly think
anything like an open rupture or revolution can ever happen in this
country.

In the end, I feel that the problem is more likely to be worked
out successfully in this country than with any other people, for the
very reason that every man has politically an equal opportunity here.
I think, also, that as a nation we are ready to adopt new ideas.

Of course, as you know, I have strong hopes that the principles of
scientific management will play a very considerable part in this work,
and that their influence will grow with great rapidity. And as this
goes on, I feel sure that the opposition of the working people them-
selves will gradually diminish. I have no hope that the present labor

ON LABOR LEADERS AND UNIONS 415

leaders can be made to be sympathetic with the principles of scien-
tific management, since they find their individual and selfish in-
terests in conflict with these principles. But the more object lessons
there are built up through the country, in the shape of companies
successfully operating under this system, the greater the likelihood
of converting the working people.

Back in April, 1907, he wrote to H. A. Evans, then the
head naval constructor at Mare Island:

I have never recognized the right of any union to dictate to me
as to what men I should employ, or what wages any of the men
in the shop should be paid. I fully recognize the right of workmen
of any class to form a union, and to state distinctly the terms upon
which they are willing to work, and if these terms appeal to me as
fair and just, I have always been ready to accede to them. I have
never, however, considered for one minute whether the machinists
or other workmen whom I employed were members of a union or
not. And I can assure you that, in my judgment, it would be a sad
day for this country if any set of workmen were able to combine and
prevent other workmen from obtaining employment at work of any
kind for which they were properly qualified.

His own practice as a manager as he here outlined it was
the basis for statements that he was by nature an autocrat and
as such incapable of sympathizing with labor's aspirations.
A statement of this kind was made in print by a man who,
while he had helped to install the Taylor System in several
plants, had labor-union leanings. On this man Taylor came
down hard J what we quote being a letter written by him in
December, 19 14, just a few months before his death:

You speak of the trades unions and my attitudes toward them.
What you say is far from correct. I am not an autocrat by birth,
training, and experience. I have worked as a workman and lived
right among woikmen for many years and have many of my best
friends now among the workmen, so that this characterization is
far from true.

4i6 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

As you know, my principal object during my lifetime has been
the welfare of the workmen. But I believe their welfare is vastly
better conserved through the establishment of laws and the control
of laws than by autocratic authority. Throughout my writings and
in everything I say I speak against autocratic authority and in favor
of the rule of law. My object has been to get scientific manage-
ment into as great a number and as great a variety of industries as
possible before I die. . . .

As you know, I am heartily in favor of unions where a hog em-
ployer or an employer careless of his workmen's rights is up against
the old-fashioned type of organization, but that my contention has
been and still remains that a union is absolutely unnecessary and only
a hindrance to the quick and successful organization of any manu-
facturing establishment. And I am sure that an establishment run-
ning under the principles of scientific management will confer far
greater blessings upon the working people than could be brought
about through any form of collective bargaining.

To him the term autocrat meant one who rules arbitrarily
or in accordance with his own will and in defiance of law.
Thus it made him indignant to have the term applied to him.
He stood for the very opposite thing j namely, the discovery
and the rule of law.

It was difficult for him to get even those who were close
to him to comprehend this. Perhaps it was a vision too grand
in its sweep beyond the horizon of the present. Such, at all
events, was his vision, and he could not be influenced to
abandon it.

CHAPTER VI

NO COMPROMISE

IN THE early part of 19 14, a common friendship was
developed among Henry P. Kendall, of the Plimpton
Press J Stanley King, of the W. H. McElwain Company,
shoe manufacturers J Felix Frankfurter, formerly Counsel of
Insular Affairs for the War Department, and just then be-
come a professor in Harvard^s law school j and Robert G.
Valentine, who had been Commissioner of Indian Affairs in
the administration of President Roosevelt, and now had become
an " industrial counselor." Meeting informally but fre-
quently for the exchange of ideas, these four gentlemen called
themselves the " Cooperators "j Kendall and King being
known among themselves as the " capitalists," and Frankfurter
and Valentine as the " anarchists." It was the view of the
" capitalists " that the " anarchists " had wrong ideas about
Taylor j and in a letter from " Capitalist" Kendall we read:

I was very anxious that they [the " anarchists "] have a chance to
get at the real Mr. Taylor, instead of know^ing him through im-
pressions received through his vs^ritings or addresses where he had
been somewhat on the defensive. We tried to get Mr. Taylor [in the
summer of 19 14] to spend a week with us. This was impossible,
so we all went to Rockland [Maine], and spent a day at the Samoset
Hotel with him, from nine o'clock in the morning until the boat
left that afternoon. It was a really great day. Mr. Taylor was not
obliged to defend his principles or policies. We spent the day ques-
tioning him on all sorts of subjects and getting at his underlying
theories. It was a red letter day for us all, and a very choice memory.

One of the " Cooperators," a professor in a law school, epitomized
417

41 8 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

the education of a law school as giving a man a truer conception of
relevancy. I might almost say that in Mr. Taylor's scheme of man-
agement, he has given us all a different and truer conception of
relevancy than previously existed.

There, of course, can be no doubt that Valentine was entirely
sincere when, writing to Taylor about the visit of the " Co-
operators," he said:

Although, as you saw, people of quite adequate appreciation of
themselves, we are nevertheless sufficiently humble to desire to be
held by you worthy to rank among your followers. We want to
put efficiently into scientific English our belief that your contribu-
tion to industry will make you more and more, as the years go by,
rank in that field as Edison ranks — or anyone you may prefer to
him — in the field of electricity.

It is plain, however, that Valentine and Frankfurter were
prepared to follow Taylor only to a certain extent. In re-
plying to the letter Valentine had written him on behalf of all
four of the " Cooperators," Taylor said :

I doubt whether anyone believes more fully and firmly in co-
operation than I do, and surely something very good must come out
of the work which you four men are together undertaking. I only
wish that I had the time and also the type of ability which is called
for in accomplishing the work you have laid out. '

There is, however, one important sentence in your letter to
which I take exception : " In other words, the struggle between capi-
tal and labor — for there is a struggle and I believe it in no wise
sound to blink it — must be limited to the division of the product,
must be entirely divorced from the creation of that product."

I cannot agree with you that there is a conflict in the interests of
capital and labor. I firmly believe that their interests are strictly
mutual, and that it is practicable to settle by careful scientific in-
vestigation the proper award that labor should receive for the work
which it renders.

NO COMPROMISE 419

In October, 19 14, at a meeting in Philadelphia of the
Society to Promote the Science of Management, Taylor told
of the conference he had had that summer with the four
" Cooperators "j and this abstract of his remarks is taken from
the society's Bulletin: ^

Messrs. Frankfurter and Valentine arraigned scientific manage-
ment on the ground that it did not recognize the fact that unions
are here to stay and that while they exercise the greatest power in
behalf of the laboring people, scientific management is doing nothing
to aid them in the work which they are undertaking. They failed
to understand why the exponents of scientific management could not
cooperate with the unions without risk to themselves in promoting
scientific management, and why much more could not be accomplished
with such cooperation of the unions.

I took issue with the arraignment, stating that we had never op-
posed the unions in anything they are doing for human rights, for
scientific management is working for everything good which the
unions want. There are two particular reasons why we oppose the
unions, — their demand for a restricted output and their demand
for collective bargaining. There is not a union in the United States
which does not demand these two things.

It is an economic fact that increased wages and general greater
prosperity can come only with increased output. The unions fight
exactly that principle. They must agree upon increased output be-
fore we can cooperate with them. They would set the standard
for a trade according to the worst man in the trade, not according
to the normal man of that trade. According to that principle we
would have to set the standard for a truck horse according to the
capacity of the smallest donkey, instead of according to the capacity
of a normal truck horse. It is the workmen themselves who suffer
by such absurd standardizations.

Mr. FranTcfurter argued that an entirely new set of union men
are coming in. They may be coming, but we are not willing to
acknowledge that they are here. A union of workmen who will not
^ Vol. I, No. I, December 19 14, p. 3.

420 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

restrict output is what we want. We are with union men of that
character. If unions will compel their members to do a full day's
work and compel every man in the union to learn his trade, then we
will be with them.

With regard to collective bargaining Professor Frankfurter argued
that workmen have no part in the setting of wages or of tasks. Men
object to being brought under shop laws which they have no part in
making. I replied by asking what proportion of the laws concerning
which Professor Frankfurter lectures have been made by us who
live under them. Every individual cannot take part in making
every law.

Certain types of laws are too complex for the person of average
experience to decide upon. Laws concerning divorce, marriage, as-
sault, etc., the average man can pass upon because they are based upon
facts of average experience. Other laws, based upon unusual ex-
perience, must be worked out by experts. Such are laws determin-
ing wages. The task which a good man in a trade can perform
and the wage he should receive for performing that task are mat-
ters which can be determined by expert investigation and should be so
determined. They are not subjects for collective bargaining any
more than the determination of the hour at which the sun will rise
to-morrow.

" But," objects Mr. Frankfurter, " the workmen have no part
in the appointment of these experts. We ought to have half the
say. The unions will be willing to pay half the wages of experts."
Any company that has any sense at all would be delighted to have the
union appoint an expert and the company would be willing to pay
the wages, for we are so anxious to discover the facts that we do not
care where the expert comes from, because the laws which he makes
must be true laws and must protect the expert from the unions. It
is not a question of who you are. Edison discovered the incandes-
cent light. He was not appointed by anyone but he was the discoverer
of one of the greatest of all things. There was no question as to who
he was or whether he was a member of a union. The man who
discovers facts and brings them to the world is an expert. He is a
discoverer. It is of no importance who appoints him. The world

NO COMPROMISE 421

is looking for him. But the expert cannot be a faker. He need not
come from any college or from any clique; however, he must be
the highest type of man.

If the unions will take up the education of their members, it will
be a step in the right direction. They will have to take this step
before we can cooperate with them. Instead of preparing for war
they must try to promote working conditions which render possible
higher wages.

Whether or not that was exactly the idea of Felix Frank-
furter, a professor in a law school, it is the fact that it was
repeatedly argued to Taylor that unless the workers have a
hand in their making, shop laws must necessarily be or are
likely to be made solely in the interest of the employer. That
his inaccessibility to this argument primarily was due to the
fact that it involved a conception of law radically different
from his own should be evident when his own conception, with
all its implications, is summed up. It was his idea, then, that
laws are discovered, not madej that the hypothesis of a cosmos
as opposed to a chaos compels the belief that there must be
a law governing every condition j that these laws can be dis-
covered through a scientific investigation and sometimes only
through such an investigation as conducted by a duly qualified
expert J that the proof of a law is in its working, and the proof
of an expert in his results j that laws as discovered become
laws for all, low and highj that while everybody low and
high shall be free to challenge, in due season, the validity
of a law on the basis of its working, no person or group of
persons low or high can be permitted to set up his individual
or their collective opinion in opposition to those laws which
have been proved, seeing that the discovery of law becomes
time and labor squandered unless the law is obeyed.

Furthermore, there is the fact that Taylor believed that
law must work equally in the interests of employer and em-
ployee. It would appear, in truth, that the differences of view

422 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

between him and men of the school of thought represented
by Valentine and Frankfurter all had their origin in this: that
whereas he was fully persuaded that the interests of employer
and employee are in all particulars " strictly mutual," they
believed that, at all events to some extent, these interests are
in conflict.

As we have had hint in what he wrote to Taylor, Valentine
was one of those who, while heartly supporting Taylor in his
belief that employer and employee have an equal interest in
increasing production, could not see that their interests are
identical when it comes to the division of the profits arising
from production. Hence the position of Valentine and thinkers
like him that wages, if nothing else, must be subject to " col-
lective bargaining," or bargaining in which the employees, as
regards power, are put on an equal footing with the employer
through collective action, and notably such collective action
as is made possible by a labor or trades union. And this,
indeed, was the position of many of Taylor's closest and
warmest friends.^

We already have traced some of the reasoning upon which
he based his faith that the interests of employer and employee
are strictly mutual even as regards the division of the product j
this reasoning all coming down to the fact that employer and
employee have an equal interest in keeping labor costs low.^
Of course he knew that through collective action labor often
could get more money put into its pay-envelopes. But always
with him arose the question as to the ultimate effect of wage-
increases that were unaccompanied by an increase of production.
How often were such wage-increases really forced from the

^ As we understand it, the friends of Taylor who here opposed him were
also influenced by this consideration, which they hold to be a fact: that while
Scientific Management has discovered laws of production, it has not discovered
laws of distribution, and this being so, the only fair way to determine what
shall be labor's share of the profits of production is by conference.

^ See vol. I, p. 312.

NO COMPROMISE 423

employer, the capitalist? And if passed on for payment to
the consumer, the general public, were they not Dead Sea fruit,
ever externally fair, but turning to smoke and ashes when
plucked, seeing that laborers themselves form the greatest
body of consumers?

He could not feel any enthusiasm for collectivism in general,
since it was essentially a part of his philosophy of management
to treat workmen individually and so induce them to act indi-
vidually. " The gospel of Scientific Management to the
worker," says General Crozier, "is to the individual j telling
him how, by special efficiency, he can cut loose from the mass,
and rise in wages and position."

It would appear also that in the collectivism which generally
prevailed during his lifetime Taylor found things that were
opposed, not merely to his philosophy of management, but to
his whole philosophy of life. He found that this collectivism
taught the workman to look to his fellows and particularly to
the leaders of his organization for his progress j that it was
calculated to appeal to the weakling and confirm him in his
weakness J and that back of it all was the idea that workmen
were being robbed and must band together to make the other
fellow stand and deliver. His own doctrine was the brave
old one of self-reliance j he would have men look within them-
selves for their progress j and deep in his philosophy was the
idea that it is fatal to character and self-development to
cherish a grievance, and that the thing to do is to deliver the
goods oneself.

The appeal to class consciousness and to class interests and
the stirring up of class hatreds and class warfare was to him
a thing accursed. Not for a minute could he join in the
suspicion and hatred of employers as a class. If there were
greedy ones among them, greed was not born with them, and
neither would it perish with themj it was a weakness pertaining
to all humanity. The notion that Scientific Management must

424 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

be all wrong as long as it was introduced by employers he
found a little too simple-minded. His experience had taught
him that employers took to Scientific Management with an in-
terest and enthusiasm in nice proportion to their possession of
that mystical quality we call kindliness and all those qualities
that go to make up the gentleman and scholar. He could not
believe that employers as a class were destined to go on trying
to take advantage of employees from now till kingdom come.
He believed that greed arises from ignorance, from not know-
ing where your interests really (i.e., ultimately and perma-
nently) liej and he believed he had started a movement des-
tined to prove to employers as a class that greed does not pay.
He could not believe that the salvation of society must lie in
balancing the greed of employee against the greed of em-
ployer j he believed that our social salvation must depend upon
convincing both employer and employee that one cannot take
advantage of the other without ultimate injury to the inter-
ests of both.

His uncompromising stand against the collectivism of the
trades-unions of his day was indeed made manifest when, in
the latter part of 19 14 and the early part of 191 5, he was
called upon to deal with the committee employed by the
Federal Commission on Industrial Relations to make a special
investigation of what we may call scientific management in
general.

For this purpose the commission first employed Robert F.
Hoxie, a professor of economics in the University of Chicago.
Professor Hoxie wished to have the assistance of a management
expert and a trades-unionist. Taylor favored Hoxie's taking
as his management expert F. G. Coburn, a naval constructor
who had been in close touch with Taylor since 191 1. It soon
developed that Coburn and Hoxie could not get along at all,
and Robert G. Valentine eventually was selected to serve as
the management expert. For his trades-unionist Hoxie took

NO COMPROMISE 425

John P. Frey, editor of the International Molders' Journal,
of Cincinnati.

As a preliminary to his investigation, Hoxie drew up a list
of " Trade Union Objections to Scientific Management " and
a list of " The Labor Claims of Scientific Managers." The
former list, after it had been revised by them, was officially
approved by a committee of the American Federation of Labor
consisting of Samuel Gompers, Frank Morrison, James Duncan,
and John P. Frey. Hoxie wished to have the managers' claims
approved, not only by Taylor, but also by such efficiency ex-
perts as Harrington Emerson. An agreement between
Taylor and any of these other men proving to be impossible,
lists of " Labor Claims of Scientific Managers " other than
Taylor were drawn up. It was well said at the time that these
various lists covered "the heaven and hell of the industrial
world." ^ As showing what justification Taylor had for be-
lieving that labor's chiefs had agreed to misrepresent his
system, we quote these specimen "Trade Union Objections ":

"Scientific management" is opposed to industrial democracy; it
is a reversion to industrial autocracy. It forces the workmen to
depend upon the employers' conception of fairness and limits the
democratic safeguards of the worker. . . .

" Scientific management " could be scientific, and, at the same
time, be inimical to the welfare of the workers. . . .

" Scientific management " is a theoretical conception already
proven a failure in practice. . . .

" Scientific management " greatly increases the number of " un-
productive workers; " that is, those engaged in clerical or super-
visory work. . . .

^ Printed in full, they form Appendixes II, III, IV, and V in Scientific
Management and Labor, by Robert F. Hoxie; D. Appleton & Company, 1920.
Appendix II, entitled " The Labor Claims of Scientific Management according
to Mr. Frederick W. Taylor," sets forth in succinct form those things for which,
at least in essence, Taylor strove all his life beginning with his early days at
Midvale.

426 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

" Scientific management " displaces day work and day wages by
task work and the piece rate, premium and bonus systems of pay-
ment. . . .

Tends to destroy the individuality and inventive genius of the
workers.

Stimulates and drives the workers up to the limit of nervous and
physical exhaustion, and overfatigues and overstrains them.

Tends to undermine the workers' health.

Shortens the workers' period of industrial activity and earning
power.

Tends to destroy the workers' self-respect and self-restraint and
leads to habits of spending and intemperance. [Picture Taylor's
emotions upon reading this!]. . . .

Is, itself, a systematic rate-cutting device.

Tends to lower the wages of many immediately and permanently.

Means, in the long run, simply more work for the same or less pay.

Tends to lengthen the hours of labor.

Leads to overproduction and increase of unemployment.

Taylor's attitude from the beginning toward the Hoxie
committee is expressed in a letter he wrote in January, 191 5,
to Henry P. Kendall:

I have not any idea that Valentine, or anyone else, will succeed in
convincing the labor men that there is any good in scientific manage-
ment, unless, at the same time, he can show them that it is going to
be a very good thing for the union. With all these men the union
is first, second, third, fourth, and fifth, and everything else is sixth.

I most sincerely hope that some good will come out of Hoxie's
investigation, but I do not believe it. At any rate, I feel that it is of
the utmost importance to us to use every effort to make good come
out of it, if possible.

Also in January, 1 915, he wrote to Gantt:

I come pretty close to agreeing with you as to the futility of our
trjnng to convert the unions. However, as long as other people, such
as the Industrial Relations Commission, are working towards the

NO COMPROMISE 427

education of even a single trades union leader, I think we ought to
cooperate with them.

I expect no great results in stopping the union activity against us,
but it can do no harm, and it may do some good.

There is no doubt that Valentine had a laudable ambition
to reconcile what he considered good in Scientific Management
with what he considered good in trades-unionism. And Hoxie
apparently had something of the same ambition. The trouble
was that the ideas of these gentlemen as to what was good in
Scientific Management and labor-unionism did not agree at
all with those of the father of Scientific Management. In the
late autumn of 19 14, before Valentine was selected for Hoxie's
associate, Taylor, along with Coburn and Kendall, met Hoxie
at the Hotel Touraine in Boston. About this meeting Mr.
Coburn writes us:

The discussion finally became rather acrid on the subject of " co-
operation," as Professor Hoxie called it, between Scientific Man-
agement and Labor; the cooperation to consist in Labor promising to
take up Scientific Management, provided Scientific Management
would recognize the labor unions. Mr. Taylor, in his most character-
istically peppery manner, declared that such cooperation would be
cooperating to cut his own throat, for the reason that the funda-
mental principles of trade unionism as it exists today are basically
inimical to the principles of Scientific Management. Later he gave
the most rigid, clean-cut description of his unflexible, unbending,
uncompromising position as to Scientific Management, its ideals, and
its methods of attempting to attain those ideals.

In January, 19 15, Taylor wrote to Valentine:

I have taken the trouble to write to practically all of those who
are engaged successfully in introducing Scientific Management, and,
without exception, they agree with me that they would not for one
instant consider anything representing a " preferential union." As
Mr. Hathaway puts it: "I do not see any reason why it should be

428 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

expected that Scientific Management would give preference to a
member of a union any more than it should give a preference to a
member of the Methodist Church, Knights of Pythias, or a follovi^er
of Confucius."

I have also been in correspondence w^ith many of the leading ovv^ners
and managers of businesses who are using Scientific Management,
and they hold exactly the same views.

I am writing this so that if you are engaging with Mr. Hoxie
in representing Scientific Management, you will clearly understand
the views of those who are connected with it, and in no way hint
or insinuate that they would compromise along these lines.

While Taylor's close associates were at one with him in
opposing the " preferential union " idea, some of them came
to favor, in these last months of his life, the " shop committee "
idea, or that of giving the workmen collectively, through
representatives chosen by them, what is called a " voice in the
management," at least as regards the conditions directly affect-
ing them. Among those who came to favor this idea was
James M. Dodge and others at the Link-Belt Company. Ap-
parently Dodge's position was that such committees were
necessary, not to insure for the men just treatment, but to
disarm organized labor in some of its claims — the claim, for
example, that Scientific Management " forces the workmen to
depend upon the employers' conception of fairness and limits
the democratic safeguards of the worker." In February, 1 9 1 5,
Taylor wrote Mr. Dodge:

I am very much interested in your statement that shop committees
should be selected by the workmen of your Chicago Link Belt Com-
pany to discuss the rates, etc. I think you are making a great mistake
in doing this. I do not believe there is the slightest dissatisfaction
among your men, and having these shop committees would only have
the effect of stimulating your men in the direction of trades unionism.
Where every individual workman has unheard of opportunities of
venting his personal grievances and of discussing the aflFairs of the

NO COMPROMISE 429

company with the higher officers, as is the case in your company, these
shop committees become entirely unnecessary and I do not believe
there is the slightest demand for them in your company.

As to " disarming organized labor in any of its claims," I should
not devote five minutes to that, if I were you. No small thing
that you can do will have any effect on them. What they want to
get is a grip on your men and anything short of that will be like
throwing a mutton chop to a tiger.

That Taylor here took a position so extreme as to be clearly
untenable, few probably would care to denyj and it may be
said that practically all of those who were his close associates
believe that he would have modified it had he continued
to live.

Obviously his extreme stand is to be explained by the way
a man of his intense temperament reacted to what he regarded
as the economic and ethical heresies permeating the collectivism
of the trades unions of his day. He feared that any form of
collectivism would lead on to this trades-unionism 3 and he
could not believe that between this trades-unionism and indus-
trial management there could be such a thing as the " joint "
control advocated by Hoxie, Valentine, and Frankfurter.
What they referred to as joint control meant to him divided
control, and he believed that in the pull and haul of divided
control economy must suffer. As a matter of fact, he saw in
the trades-unionism of his day a struggle of labor leaders,
who were not of industry, to gain the upper hand in industry.
" Joint " control would be regarded by them merely as a step
to complete control. And his view of it was that the control
of industry by these outside individuals would bring all the
evils of power divorced from responsibility.

The fact is, however, that since Taylor's death such col-
lectivism as that of shop-committee plans and other plans
looking to employee representation in management and par-
ticipation in policy determination has worked out to prevent

430 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

the evils of trades-unionism, rather than invite them. Such
collectivism, indeed, has been found to work exceedingly well
in plants where there is extensive practice, not merely of the
Taylor System, but of the true Taylor spirit. It cannot be
said that in these establishments employee-representation plans
have introduced anything new in the way of proper considera-
tion for and just treatment of employees — that is of the
essence of the Taylor spirit — but the evidence is that the
representation plans have provided machinery for the better
working of that spirit. Hardly necessary is it to say that
Taylor would have continued to view as very much misguided
those who think that employee-representation plans by them-
selves can serve as an ultimate solution of the labor problems.
But as he could have been led to see that such plans serve to
create a better social atmosphere in the shop, there can be little
doubt that he would have heartily endorsed them. This is
indicated by what he wrote about profit-sharing to the Rev.
Dr. Lyman Abbott in 1912:

I look upon it as of the greatest importance that the working
people should come to see that their hope for a better future lies
in increasing their productivity, whether it be by labor saving ma-
chinery, by increased efficiency, or any other device, rather than
quarrelling with their employers over the wages which they are to
receive, while at the same time doing nothing to increase their pro-
ductivity.

We all, of course, fully realize that in many isolated cases capital
has received and is receiving a larger proportion of the joint efforts
of the two than it should receive; but this is not the rule, it is the
exception.

Having then in mind the tremendous importance of this increase
in the output of the working people, I think that almost all methods
and systems and expedients should be measured to a large extent by
the effect which they produce upon the output of the working people.
Now, without question, any device or any scheme which makes for

NO COMPROMISE 431

a friendly feeling and for brotherly cooperation between the working
people and their employers makes for an increase in output; and
among the various ways of promoting a friendly feeling between em-
ployer and employee, the payment to the working people of a portion
of the net profits, in the form of a dividend, is one. This profit
sharing undoubtedly has the good effect of promoting rather than
otherwise a friendly feeling between both sides, and in so far as it
does this it is good, and I approve of it.^

It Is to be reported also that there are those who feel that
if Taylor could have lived to witness the change in the attitude
of many labor leaders since the World War, he would have
modified his own attitude towards trades-unions. In this
connection it should be brought out that though he remained
unshaken in his conviction that there was no need of labor
unions where Scientific Management was practiced in spirit and
in truth, it is not on record that he ever took the position that,
as employers generally were in his day and Scientific Manage-

^ It is true that Taylor continued in his letter to Dr. Abbott as follows:
" To hand over a portion of the profits to the working people pro rata, ac-
cording to the wages earned by them, is the easiest, the simplest, the laziest
and the least effective way of bringing the working people to share in the
prosperity of the company. If, however, the management is not willing or
able to give the time, the thought and the effort necessary to make each indi-
vidual workman share in the prosperity of the company in direct proportion
to his personal effort, then by all means give the working people a share in the
profits. Let me again emphasize, however, that this is the lazy man's method."
Here we see how deep-rooted was Taylor's instinct against all forms of col-
lective or mass treatment of employees, as well as against mass action by them.
It has been proved, however, that employee-representation plans are quite con-
sistent with the individualization of employees in all essential particulars, while
at the same time providing machinery, valuable in proportion to the size of the
shop, both for the management to interpret itself to the employees and for the
employees to interpret their desires and aspirations to the management, and thus
further the working out of that very principle of intimate, friendly co-
operation upon which Taylor put so much stress. It has been said on behalf
of the stand he made against shop committees that he was wisely bent on keep-
ing politics out of Scientific Management. The question is, however, if eco-
nomic consideration? ever can totally exclude the political in the affairs of human
beings; and it is to be observed that politics neei not be on a low plane, but
can be carried up to a very high plane of statesmanship.

432 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

ment had been developed and introduced, labor could proceed
to disband its organizations. And what is certain is that when-
ever during his lifetime an individual labor leader showed any
symptom of open-mindedness in connection with the cause to
which he had devoted his life, he hurried to meet him.

It has been said, not unjustly, that his main position that
under Scientific Management labor unions are unnecessary was
expressed by him " vehemently, narrowly, and with a certain
intolerance." Leaving his expression out of it, we find his
position itself strongly supported by a recent investigation
conducted by John R. Commons, who will be generally recog-
nized not only as an investigator of the highest competence,
impartiality, and authority, but also as a man who all along has
been extremely sympathetic to the cause of labor. The in-
vestigation to which we refer is that reported by Commons in
his Industrial Government , published in 1920. Following the
chapters describing the management of eighteen industrial
plants, most of which were Taylor plants in toto or in spirit,
are chapters presenting Commons's conclusions. In one of
these chapters entitled " Inferences " we find the following: ^

From 10 per cent to 25 per cent of American employers may
be said to be so far ahead of the game that trade unions cannot reach
them. Conditions are better, wages are better, security is better, than
unions can actually deliver to their members. The other 75 per
cent to 90 per cent are backward, either on account of inefficiency,
competition, or greed, and only the big stick of unionism or legis-
lation can bring them up to the level of the 10 per cent or the 25
per cent ... we do not find that " labor " wants participation in
the responsibih'ties of ownership or management . . . what we find
that labor wants as a class, is wages, hours, and security without
financial responsibility, but with power to command respect . . .
the outstanding fact in our investigation is the importance of Man-
agement.

1 P. 263.

CHAPTER VII

THE ONCOMING OF THE SHADOW

WHEN, early in 19 13, ColUer^s Weekly asked its
readers to make suggestions for a series of articles
on " every-day heroes," Lieutenant Klyce pro-
posed that Taylor be made one of the subjects. In sending
Taylor a copy of his letter to the editor, Klyce said: " I
sincerely hope you do not think I have been too fresh." After
a few days, Taylor replied :

I have been smih'ng a good deal since receiving your very kind
letter of January 31st, enclosing copy of your recommendation to
Collier's Suggestion Editor.

There is a very old and true saying that no one is a hero in the eyes
of his valet, and as I am my own valet, I can assure you that this
saying applies very strictly in my case. If anyone w^ere to come to
see me to find out what kind of a hero I was, they would find out
that almost everything I am doing is done for my own amusement.
I hardly know of anyone who is doing more for his own amusement
than I am.

I play golf with as great regularity as possible, and this winter (at
first reluctantly, but latterly with a great deal of pleasure) I have
been going to the theatre about twice a week, and have been fairly
haunting one or two of the clubs here. Having all this in mind, I
am compelled to laugh every time that I think of your recom-
mendation.

I am very sure if you were to speak to any of my intimate friends
here in Philadelphia of my joining the hero class, a howl of laughter
would rise towards the heavens.

My feeling is that the heroes, such as are called for by Collier's
Weekly, are men who are really making great sacrifices for the good

433

434 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

of their kind, and it is surely no sacrifice for anyone to do exactly
as they want to do. The name, to my mind, always implies self
sacrifice, and as you say there are hundreds of men of this sort whose
whole life is a sacrifice for other people.

I am very sure that your life is far more heroic than mine, be-
cause you are constantly working in the line which you have chosen
without as yet any recognition from your fellow men. This is: far
more heroic than anything which I have done. I have always in
my work had the satisfaction of seeing tangible results accomplished
within a reasonably short time, and having these results appreciated,
at least by the men whom they most concerned.

It is a very different story for a man to work through a term
of years, as you are doing, with no recognition whatever. In fact,
my friend Sanford E. Thompson, of Newton Highlands, Mass.,
who for a great many years worked in a tireless manner and for a
very small salary, and refused to publish any of his colossal time
study until it was in really a very magnificent form, is far more
of a hero than I ever was.

Let me assure you, however, that I most thoroughly appreciate your
kind thought, and that I value the good opinion of such men as you
more than anything else that comes to me in life.

From Klyce's interpretation of this his friend's letter, we
quote the following:

I know that Taylor plays golf because his doctors have ordered
him to, and that he would much prefer to work continuously at
teaching scientific management for the pure love of the thing. I
judge that he goes to the theatre for the same reason. He haunts
clubs for the same reason to a degree, but mostly to meet men there
who come from all over the country to consult with him. He has
used up his nervous system to such an extent that he is not permitted
to work but half a day. A man's nervous system goes bad in two
ways: one, from worrying over trivial selfish interests — he not
having any real interest in life, this worrying being accompanied
usually by irregular habits — by trivial selfish excitements; the
second, from continued nervous tension caused by continual effort

THE ONCOMING OF THE SHADOW 435

to solve unsolved problems, to bring clashing interests together: to
do hard things, in short. It may be foolish to get nerves the second
way: Taylor sa^s it is. But the fact remains that it is doubtful
whether a man could have accomplished as much as Taylor has
without wearing out his nervous system. If everybody did every-
thing perfectly right, it would be foolish for a man to keep plugging
at high nervous tension. Taylor, I think, knew he was sacrificing
his health. He is still using it up, while making every effort to make
it last as long as possible for the pure love of the game. As he says,
a hero sacrifices something; also a hero would not call something a
sacrifice which other people would.

He denies that he sacrifices anything, but that he amuses himself
more than other men do. That is perfectly correct. The man who
accomplishes anything worth while enjoys it, even to going out and
playing golf if necessary. A man to become a hero must enjoy what
he is doing very much; else, he will remain a cheap, discontented
mediocrity all his life.

Taylor lays stress upon the fact that the results of his work
have been appreciated, but he is honest enough to add unconsciously
a modifying clause : " at least by the men whom they most concerned."
His work has been much appreciated, yet he is considered a devil in-
carnate by, for instance, some of the bosses at steel works, and by
some labor leaders. I have personally heard the men mentioned ex-
press such opinions. Thus some representatives both of capital and
labor hate him, which is of itself pretty good proof that he is about
right. Taylor knows of this hatred, and I have certain knowledge
that it hurts him, and I think that it makes him work the harder
trying to persuade labor and capital to get together on a fair basis.
It is my personal opinion, from hearing Taylor talk, that his sym-
pathies are almost entirely with labor, but that he considers it more
of an immediate possibility to get capital to start cooperating than it
is to educate labor to it. Labor gets it in the neck pretty hard,
mostly because it is ignorant and will not or cannot learn. I have
had a few set-tos with labor leaders myself, and I am sorry for them:
if you treat them with any perceptible kindness they assume you are
weak, and if you try to tell them anything they are so busy trying

436 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

to fight you that they haven't any time to comprehend what you are
trying to say. Employers have on the other hand the faults which
usually go with executive ability: when once they start to do any-
thing they do not reason any more, but smash everything that gets
in the way; you have to catch them with the reasons before they
start to do the thing. And Taylor has been up against all this most of
his life and preserved his kindliness and his insight. It is quite
easy to observe these things from the outside, but it is a different mat-
ter to keep your head if you are mixed in with it. And he says he has
been appreciated. He has been, but not so much that it has balanced
as yet the greater amount of condemnation.

It would appear to be a sound proposition that, whether
or not a man can be a hero to his valet, he is no hero who is
a hero to himself. Nevertheless, Taylor must have been con-
scious that, in devoting his life with such intensity to a single
aim, he had sacrificed something, and something more than his
health. With his friend Birge Harrison, the painter, or his
friend Frank L. Babbott, a connoisseur, he would stand before
a picture and ask for an explanation of what made it great.
It was obvious that he groped for the laws governing this
thing. He groped also for the laws governing intangible
things like ethics and morals and religion. He groped for
laws to which he had been obedient all his life, but which
he could not formulate 3 his mind having been trained to deal
almost exclusively with tangible things and tangible proof. He
did not deny 3 he simply could not follow.

He largely identified himself with the Unitarian Church,
but continued to find sermons so distracting that he had to
make himself content with the practical side of the church,
such as furthering the work of the clubs organized to help in
their every-day life young men and women who had had no
advantages.

He was kept humble by his knowledge of the ability he did
not have and the things he did not know. There was much

THE ONCOMING OF THE SHADOW 437

that was wistful in his attitude toward men who spoke
familiarly of things upon which he felt he had no light.
Nevertheless, he had found great compensation for the part
he had played. He had given himself to a truly big work,
and had become truly big in the giving. The older he grew,
the more his sense of power manifested itself in courtliness
and graciousness. Undoubtedly he found his greatest reward
in his friends. What friends he had! And what numbers
of. them!

Never did he lose sight of his principle that " it is the small,
unexpected, unasked for acts of courtesy and kindness that
give especial pleasure." He frequently found time for the
writing of what he called " just a friendly letter." When he
discovered a safety razor that gave him particular satisfaction,
he presented razors of this make to his friends in general.
And in each case he sent with the razor detailed instructions for
putting it in the best condition and for using it — instructions
so complete as to amount to a little essay on the art of cutting
whiskers.

All along he had striven to keep in touch with his working-
men friends, especially those who had served with him at
Mid vale i and in these the days when the daylight for him
was fading and the night was coming on, he seized every
opportunity to bring together, at a luncheon or a dinner at
hotel or club, those of his friends whose walks in life were
different. It was his idea that the part each has to play should
be appreciated by all. He was particularly desirous that those
of his friends who were not workingmen should meet those
of his friends who were. He wanted not merely to increase
the purchasing power of a day's work, but to make a day's
work respected. That indeed was the object of most of his
luncheons and dinners — to bring workingmen and other men
together, and so fill in the social chasm that usually exists be-
tween such men.

438 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

While he gave many signs of a mellowing nature, there at
the same time were symptoms of increasing nervous instability.
Men who had business relations with him could not be sure
in what mood they would find him. He who all along had
been an inspiration now sometimes depressed people, giving
them a sense of fearful strain j the whole atmosphere surround-
ing him seemed tense.

For one or two years his physician had observed lines of
fatigue gathering in his face. The sensations of fatigue largely
were inhibited from reaching his mind, so great was his absorp-
tion in other things. But, as Klyce has suggested, the
probabilities are that as he did become conscious that his body
was sending him distress signals, he felt he must disregard the
danger of using himself up.

Seemingly his philosophy had one grave defect. Through-
out his life he was inclined to take too much upon himself, to
assume and to feel too great a responsibility. He did not leave
enough up to God. His immense sincerity and earnestness
were not properly counterpoised, in that his philosophy failed
to take sufficiently into account a Providence to which, after
he had done his part, he might safely commit the rest. He
could not with his intellect definitely conceive of such a Provi-
dence, and what his intellect could not grasp, comfrehendy
was to him as a shadow. Thus when he felt his burden be-
coming unendurable, he was at loss to know where to turn.
The time came when he appealed to his physician to help him
stop thinking, to help him cast off the thoughts that were
oppressing him. With all due respect for the medical pro-
fession, we must feel that there was in this appeal a world
of tragedy.

Before this he had written to his friend Klyce : " I am greatly
pleased with your definition of worry and its causes and
remedies. I have really never before given any thought as to
the real cause and essence of worry. It seems to me that your

THE ONCOMING OF THE SHADOW 439

short treatise on the subject ought to be a great help to a lot
of us who spend a very large part of our lives in foolish
worries." To every heart comes some prompting that some-
how and sometime it must come out all right j but is there
not here call for conscious, active faith?

It is reported that some of our labor friends have — we
dislike to say boasted, but it would appear to be the word —
have boasted that he died brokenhearted because they had
knocked out his system. We hardly think it ever occurred to
him that his system had been knocked outj but there is no
doubt that it depressed him to be forced to realize that the
great body of those who made up the industrial world of his
day were not yet ready to be convinced, even when proof was
furnished by practical object lessons, that in every way it paid
to abandon one's wilfulness and submit oneself to law. He
knew his requirement was immense. The best he hoped for
was to put the generality in the way of acquiring the new
spirit. Great was his belief in object lessons. Always with
him was the call to work hard to add to the number and
variety of these object lessons before the coming of the night.
Far from being in vain was his belief in object lessons. Fre-
quent and wonderful had been the conversions to the new
spirit, and these constituted a clear call to go on. But the
clouds would sweep down. It could not be doubted that there
were those who were proof against object lessons. And many
others who learned, only to forget. He could have told Pro-
fessor Hoxie before that gentleman set out upon his investiga-
tion that nowhere would his ideal be found to have attained
complete realization.^

He knew it was folly to expect that anything ever would
turn out exactly as you might hope. He could make himself

^ Though in his report as we find it in Scientific Management and. Labor
Hoxie put all the emphasis on the failure of Scientific Management in practice
to measure up to Taylor's ideal, every impartial reader of the report must
conclude that Hoxie found that in all particulars this ideal was valid.

440 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

reasonably content with approximations. But it was the defect
of his ardent temperament that it led him to chafe in the
presence of wilfulness and stupidity, to explode and exhaust
his nervous force when confronted by the spectacle of people
holding to their individual opinions and proceeding on their
own narrow, petty individual ways in calm disregard of the
facts and in complacent ignoring of the teaching of experience.
It was indeed hard for him to reconcile himself to the
listlessness and inertness of the mass. Writing to General
Crozier about the report of an A.S.M.E. committee on in-
dustrial management, he said:

It is so colorless and insipid that it seems hardly worth discussing.
It would seem as if the whole object of the writers was to point out
the fact that, after all, one thing is just about as good as another,
and that even if there is any good in anything, the same thing was
done two or three hundred years ago. There are lots of men who
take exactly this stand in life, who have no enthusiasm for anything,
and whose whole object seems to be to show that it doesn't make any
difference what you do — it's all just about alike.

In these years he conceived a liking for a piece of writing
so emotional and highly colored that you hardly would have
suspected it would appeal to him at all. Perhaps he here
found something that spoke for him as he could and would
not speak for himself. It is a piece of writing by Herbert
Kaufman called The Dreamers: —

They are the architects of greatness. . . . Their vision lies within
their souls. . . . The world has accoladed them with jeer and sneer
and jibe, for worlds are made of little men who take but never
give — who share but never spare — who cheer a grudge and grudge
a cheer. Makers of empire, they have fought for bigger things
than crowns and higher seats than thrones. . . .Through all the
ages they have heard the voice of Destiny call to them from the
unknown vasts. They dare uncharted seas, for they are the makers

THE ONCOMING OF THE SHADOW 441

of the charts. With only cloth of courage at their masts and with
no compass save their dreams, they sail away undaunted for the far,
blind shores. . . . They are the chosen few — the Blazers of the
Way — who never wear Doubt's bandage on their eyes — who
starve and chill and hurt, but hold to courage and to hope, because
they know that there is always proof of truth for them who try —
that only cowardice and lack of faith can keep the seeker from his
chosen goal, but if his heart be strong and if he dream enough and
dream it hard enough, he can attain, no matter where men failed
before.

He had some bitter disappointments to bear in the case of
men who had associated themselves with him. He did not
look for a hundred per cent perfection in men. He easily
could disregard any disloyalty or ingratitude to him personally.
Men, from his point of view, could run with the hares and
hunt with the hounds as much as they liked, provided they
rendered their clients honest service and the principal effect
of their activities was to advance his general cause. But some
men to whom he had given splendid advertising used it to
gouge their clients. He was extremely reluctant to believe it.
To him, apparently, it was almost like wrenching out his own
heart to withdraw his confidence where once he had placed it
fully. There were those who, seeing him temporize in the
case of men whose greed notoriously was injuring his cause,
came to feel that he was losing his power of decision. Only
at the very last did he give up and issue warnings that he very
much feared that the main interest the men in question had
in his cause was in the money they could get out of it.

Chief among his worries was the continued ill health of
his wife. Here again, doubtless, he took too much upon him-
self, assumed too much responsibility for restoring her to
health. In her presence his power over himself remained
intact. When alone with his secretary, he would fall into
attitudes of exhaustion and dejection. His head would sink

442 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

upon his breast, and from him would come deep sighs. But
a magic change should he hear a certain footstep! — instantly
a bearing alert and cheerful, and a face all smiles. She was
not to be worried about anything. Terrible would be the
consequence to anyone who permitted anything unpleasant to
reach her.

Then, in the summer of 19 14, when Boxly had been closed,
and he and his wife were at their cottage at Rockland, Maine,
burst upon the world the calamity of the great war.

CHAPTER VIII

HIS FINAL EFFORT

ON August 1 6, he wrote to Le Chatelier, his friend and
supporter in France:

This war is inconceivably horrible. I am completely upset and
unnerved by it, and can think of nothing else. Thinking of all
my friends in France, I am filled with indignation at the action of
the Germans. Personally, I have not the slightest doubt that the
whole plan was prearranged by Emperor Wilhelm simply with a
view to German aggression.

The sentiment in this country is absolutely universal in favor of
France, England and Russia. I have yet to meet a single man who
wants the Germans to succeed. We are all hoping that the end of
absolutism has come and that the German Emperor, as a result of
this war, will receive his quietus.

I do hope that none of your family is going to suffer from this
horrible war. I cannot think that the Germans will be able to
penetrate far into France this time, and hope that they will be
driven back and that the allies, before long, will be actually invading
Germany.

What a terrible blow, however, to the whole world! Every part
of the world will suffer from this inconceivable aggression on the
part of the Germans. May the outcome be the end of the great
military development in Europe.

To Gerald C. Allingham, one of his warm friends in Eng-
land, he wrote on September 4:

I do not see how it is possible for you Englishmen to have thoughts
for anything except this horrible war. To me the whole thing is
absolutely unthinkable. I lie awake at night worrying over it, and

443

444 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

am sure no greater calamity could overtake the world than the success
of the German arms. All of you have my warmest sympathy, and
I greatly regret that I am unable, personally, to help your cause.

For all his personal horror of warfare, there was in his
attitude nothing of " pacifism." In this month of September,
1 9 14, he wrote to Wilfred Lewis:

I heartily agree with what you say about the necessity of our
being prepared for an attack by the Germans, or some other nation.
We shall have to give up our slushy policy of disarmament and of
depending on vague arbitration treaties.

The war weighed upon him constantly during the months
of life that remained to him. In the beginning he not only was
oppressed by a sense of the calamity it meant to the world,
but also had reason to be concerned by its effect upon his
personal fortunes. From many of his investments the income
suddenly was reduced or cut off. The bottom seemed to be
dropping out of everything. Thus he found it necessary to
tell some of the young men whom he had been helping to
educate that they must be prepared to have him withdraw
his support, and to take other measures of economy such as
cutting down to half time the men who still were helping
to conduct the grass-growing experiments at Boxly.

When, at the end of September, he and his wife gave up
their cottage on the Maine coast, and went to Atlantic City,
he, to all outward appearances, was in good physical trim. Old
friends, however, now heard him, in his fifty-eighth year,
speak in a tone of discouragement. Coming from him, it was
startling. But not for long, even now, could discouragement
stay with him. It was up again and on — on under whip
and spur.

From Atlantic City he made occasional trips to Philadelphia.
In October, a few days after he went to that city to address

HIS FINAL EFFORT 445

the Society to Promote the Science of Management on the
subject of the discussion he had at Rockland that summer with
Valentine and Frankfurter, he again went to Philadelphia to
speak at the Y.M.C.A. on the subject of "Law versus
Opinion." Plenty of fight was still left in him. It was after
his return from Rockland that he took his final stand against
any compromise with the trades-unionism of his day.

In the latter part of December he went to Detroit to speak.
That it was an encouraging experience appears from the letter
he wrote to various friends upon his return to Atlantic City: —

I spoke before a meeting of about 600 of the superintendents and
foremen of the leading Detroit manufacturers. These men were
much interested in the principles of scientific management.

At a dinner given by a number of members of the Detroit Board
of Commerce, they stated that a very large number of the manu-
facturers of Detroit had determined to introduce the principles of
scientific management into their business, and that already many of
them were actually working in this direction.

I was introduced to eight or ten heads of companies who told me
that they were endeavoring to introduce the principles of scientific
management into their business and that they were meeting with
large success.

This is most interesting as being almost the first instance, in which
a group of manufacturers had undertaken to install the principles
of scientific management without the aid of experts; and it is
especially interesting to see that they are meeting with results satis-
factory to themselves.

Another thing which greatly encouraged him at this time
was a report he received from the Pullman Company of the
excellent progress Barth had made since he had undertaken the
reorganization in accordance with Taylor methods of certain
departments of that plant about a year before.

In February, 1915, Taylor wrote from Atlantic City to
Babbott:

446 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

We are having, on the whole, an agreeable winter from the golf
standpoint — only four or five days in which the snow interfered —
and I have accustomed myself to the cold, so that I can have a very
good time playing with the thermometer as low as 12.

Atlantic City is also a pretty good place, on the whole, for golf
because there always seems to be someone whom I have known before
to play with. Altogether, I have had more relations to golf this
winter than for many years, because considerable of my spare time is
taken up with writing the article on " Making a Putting Green."

I am sorry to say that this is already bearing the fruit which I
anticipated, but which I hoped would not be quite so aggressive; i.e.,
a lot of letters asking for further information about grass growing.
With my standard correspondence on scientific management, this
comes pretty near to adding the last straw.

His lengthy and exhaustive grass-growing article, it will
be understood, was published in installments in Country Life
in America almost as fast as he wrote it. As the letters its
publication inspired continued to arrive, it became so that
he would hand them to his secretary. Miss Mitchell, and tell
her that she would have to answer them as best she could. At
this, his confession of disability, so utterly unlike his usual self,
she could not help but wonder. But then it was difficult for
anyone to realize that anything serious could be the matter with
him. That he, the general benefactor, should himself be in
need of benefaction, did seem incredible.

Though he could not stand much addition to his regular
work, he was glad he had this work. On March 2, he wrote
to Birge Harrison:

I look upon work as the greatest blessing which we have, and
almost every day of my life thank my stars that, in spite of Lou's
illness, I have enough work to occupy my spare time.

He clung to the old friendships such as he enjoyed with
Harrison. All the sweetness in his nature came out in his

HIS FINAL EFFORT 447

letters to these his old friends. He feared that as an artist
Harrison would suffer particularly from the war. But, after
all, so he wrote, " if only our barest bodily needs are provided
for, and we have good health, we should be able to be happy."

About two years before this he had become acquainted with
Richard A. Feiss, general manager of the Joseph & Feiss
Company, manufacturers of men's clothing in Cleveland.

We all are familiar with the chronic labor troubles that
have beset the clothing industry as a whole. The Joseph &
Feiss Company had had its share of these troubles. Soon after
he became the general manager of this company, of which his
father was one of the founders, Richard Feiss, Harvard
graduate, came to the conclusion that the management had
been thinking too much of its authority over its employees and
not enough of its responsibility to them. And he reasoned
it out that the management could discharge its responsibility
only by carefully investigating the best ways of doing things
and imparting the knowledge thus gained to the workers.
" Our whole organization," says Feiss, " was based upon that
proposition." And this was before he knew there was such a
person as Frederick W. Taylor.

But he was not a man who believed that one's own indi-
vidual experience could suffice. He sought light on manage-
ment problems from everyone who might have it to give. At
length he read Sho-p Management. And then he packed his
grip and went to Philadelphia. He met Taylor for the first
time when Taylor was staying at the Bellevue-Stratf ord. Be-
tween these two men, so different in racial origin, there
immediately sprang up a devoted friendship. They proceeded
to correspond regularly. And Feiss's first little journey was
followed by many more. Sometimes he saw Taylor at Atlantic
City. There they promenaded the board walk, discussing,
threshing out, problems that we know are among the most
vexatious that ever have corrugated the human brow.

448 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

Only in a general way can we here indicate the outcome at
that Cleveland clothing factory, with its eight or nine hun-
dred men and women employees largely composed of immi-
grants from eastern and southern Europe and the children of
such immigrants. Hours reduced from 54 a week to an
average of about 43 a weekj productivity at the same time
increased 43 per centj wages increased on an average of 40
per cent. In 19 10, the labor turnover had been 150.3 per cent
(what is called a " good normal " for the clothing industry) j
in 1 9 14, this turnover was 33.5 per cent. Scores of young men
and women taught English at the factory, so that all might
have a common medium of speech and thus really get to know
and understand one another. A service department headed
by a college woman of the highest type, and devoted largely
to raising standards of living, so that all might have a vision
inspiring them to learn and to earn. Hundreds of foreigners
Americanized — taught not only our language, but our
customs, our sports, our songs.

For a long time Feiss had been desirous of getting Taylor
out to Cleveland, that he might see for himself what had been
accomplished. One thing or another had prevented Taylor's
going. But at length, in the year 191 5, it was arranged that
he should speak at a dinner of the Cleveland Advertising Club
on the evening of March 3, and on this trip visit the Joseph &
Feiss factory.

When he arrived in Cleveland on the morning of that day,
Feiss was at the station to meet him. Wearing an ordinary
cloth overcoat, he carried a big fur one. " I slept with both
windows of my berth wide open," he explained, " and used
this fur coat to cover me. I suppose the porter thought I
was crazy."

He and Feiss had the regular luncheon that was served at
the factory. He was with a man who loved him as a brother.
And in that atmosphere of warmth he expanded. He was his

HIS FINAL EFFORT 449

old genial, mischievous self. For more than two hours he and
his friend lingered at the table. Once more he fought over
his old Bethlehem battles.

The dinner of the Cleveland Advertising Club was at the
Hotel Statler. Ah, those gatherings of business men! Hail
to the we-have-with-us-this-evening speech! Lo, the poor
toastmaster, forced by ironclad convention to tell a funny story!
There was, said he, a general manager who, after much persua-
sion by a salesman, installed a " most complete " filing system.
A year later, the salesman dropped in just for a friendly call.
And now let us quote directly from the stenographic report:

After going through the usual generah'ties of conversation, the
salesman said:

" Well, how is the filing system working? "

The general manager immediately responded: " It is splendid,
wonderful! We are getting wonderful results with it! There
is nothing else like it. "

The salesman, of course, was naturally much elated, and after
a little while longer, he asked the general manager: "Well, how's
business? "

The manager looked at him and said: " Business! Hang the busi-
ness! We don't have any time to take care of business. We are
too busy running that filing system." (Laughter)

I do not know [continued the toastmaster] that that particular
story has anything to do with this subject, except that it is not scien-
tific management. We are gathered here tonight to listen to a talk
which means a great deal to all of us; that is, we have heard it dis-
cussed pro and con for years; we have heard a great many theories
advanced by many individuals, many which conflict directly; and we
have our own ideas about the whole proposition; but, after all,
almost everyone we have heard continuously refers and mentions one
particular individual who seemed to be the man that originated, or
you might say correlated into working shape, the principles so that
they could be put into definite and actual working form. Not only
have these principles, as I have said before, been a matter of theory.

450 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

but they have been worked out in plant after plant with actual results]
produced, and most up-to-date manufacturers adopt them in theirj
own business.

We, therefore, gentlemen, are particularly fortunate this evening j
in listening to probably the greatest authority on the principles of sci-
entific management in the world, not as a theory, but as to actual]
test. I, therefore, take great pleasure in introducing Dr. Frederickj
W. Taylor, who will now address you. (Applause.)

Thus introduced, Taylor began:

Ladies and gentlemen: If you have heard the chairman before —
and I have no doubt you have — I have no doubt you are familiar with
just the kind of taffy which he gives. (Laughter.) I can assure you
that it tastes very sweet to the stranger who is not used to it, but I know
that you will all discount it.

He appeared to be at his best in this his last presentation
of his cause. Never did he do much walking up and down.
He was chary with gesticulation. Once in a while he would
strike palm with fist, or go through the motion of a punch.
He could not, so we are told, have had a more attentive
audience. Those who were not particularly interested in his
subject were forced to take an interest in him. There stood
no ordinary man, and he did not stand there for nothing.

It was his old theme — the folly of restricting output.
" The increase in the real wealth of the world . . . the in-
crease of the happiness of the world . . . the opportunity for
shorter hours, for better education, for amusement, for art,
for music, for everything that is worth while in the world —
all this goes straight back to this increase in the output of the
individual."

CHAPTER IX

THE END OF THE PILGRIMAGE

ON HIS way back from Cleveland his old bronchial
cough returned to plague him at night. He could
not now get a drawing room. So, in fear of disturb-
ing the other people in the sleeping car, he went into a day
coach and sat up there for the rest of the night.

On March 9 he wrote to Babbott from Atlantic City, where
he and Mrs. Taylor were then living:

We are having ideal winter weather here just now, and I am kick-
ing myself at not being able to enjoy it, on account of a cold and a
severe attack of the grippe. As long as a temperature and a bronchial
cough continue, I do not dare to go out of doors very much.

The next day, however, he went to Philadelphia with his
wife. That evening, evidently now feeling certain that some-
thing serious was the matter with him, he wrote out for the
benefit of his physician a detailed description of his symptoms.

He had a bad night. The next morning, after a conference
with Dr. Daland, it was decided that he should go to a hospi-
tal. The hospital to which he was then taken was the Medi-
cochirurgical, and the trouble was there found to be pneumonia,
first of the bronchial type and then of the influenzoid. In
these types there are no regular days of crisis.

" He was," says Dr. Daland, " a docile and obedient
patient." For hours he lay motionless on his back, apparently
resolved to endure patiently. His mind always was clear. He
was cheerful, too, and apparently did not entertain the idea
of death. He had an exceptionally fine Swiss watch to which

451

452 FREDERICK W. TAYLOR

he had treated himself on one of his trips abroad. Every
morning he wound his watch — systematically. It was a great
joke between him and the doctor, this watch- winding of his.

He gave strict orders that Mrs. Taylor was not to come to
see him. In her weakened state, she must not take any chances
of infection. He was an imperious marij you had to do what
he said.

His daughter was with his brother at a resort hotel in the
south. His son Kempton was at Haverford College, and his
son Robert at Cornell. There seemed to be no reason why
anyone should be alarmed.

He did not wish any of his friends to know he was ill. His
secretary, Miss Mitchell, went to see him once at his request.
Among other things he asked her to see that the men employed
on the grass-growing experiments at Boxly were put back on
full time.

His ninth day in the hospital was the fifty-ninth anniversary
of his birth. His physician on this day did not look for any
critical development — not at least within two or three days.
About half past four the next morning he was heard to wind
his watch. It was an unusual hour, but nothing was thought
of it. Not until half an hour later did the nurse enter the
room, to find that he had died there alone.

His body was buried in West Laurel Hill Cemetery, just
across the Schuylkill River from the Manayunk section of
Philadelphia. His grave is on a hill. It is marked with a very
simple stone bearing the inscription, " Frederick W. Taylor,
Father of Scientific Management." From this grave on the
hill you can look up the river to where tall chimneys belching
forth smoke show the location of steel works.

In the flesh he was a generation ahead of his time. There-
fore his life had to be one of heroic struggle, and his own
concrete examples of his philosophy and system were nee-

THE END OF THE PILGRIMAGE 453

essarily incomplete and imperfect. But if in the flesh he was
ahead of his generation, he is in the spirit contemporaneous
with the generations now coming on. One result of his in-
tensive application of the scientific method to management,
high-speed steel, has permanently increased the productivity
of machine-shop operations the world over from two to four
times J but what is of infinitely greater importance, his ideal-
ism has awakened management to its responsibilities in every
particular, while his practicality has blazed a trail for man-
agement to follow in the discharge of its responsibilities.
Today, less than a decade after his passing in the flesh, the
concrete examples of his philosophy and system erected by
those who caught the fire from him directly or indirectly, are
cited as the outstanding examples in American industry, not
only of economical management, but of ethical — examples,
in fine, of the harmonious relations possible among owners,
managers, and workers. In many lands his writings are being
studied and adaptations of his philosophy being devised to
meet particular conditions. The work of the mind endures.

INDEX

Abbott, Ernest A., ii: 277, 278.
Abbott, Rev. Dr. Lyman, ii: 235, 236,

430. 431-
Abolitionists, i: 41, 42.
Absentee ownership, i: 153-155.
Academic and Industrial Efficiency,

Cooke, ii: 268.
Accounting, developed by Taylor, i:

xviii, 36i-37i> 39^) 392. 422, 446;

ii: 142, 375-377-
Adams, Prof. H. C, i: 365.
Adamson, Daniel, ii: 256, 257.
Adamson, Joseph, & Co., ii: 256.
Adler, Felix, i: 183.
Aertsen, Guilliaem, i: iii, 112, 121,

i33> 134, 144-

Agrostis stolonifera, ii: 203, 204.

Air-hardening- steel. See Self-harden-
ing steel.

Albigensian Heresy, i: 25.

Alcott, Bronson, i: 40.

Alford, L. P., ii: 364, 374.

Alifas, N. P., ii: 340, 347, 400, 401.

Allen, O. D., i: iii.

Allingham, Gerald C, ii: 443.

Amalgamated Association of Iron and
Steel Workers, i: 210.

American Booksellers' Association, ii:

392-
American Electric Railway Association,

ii: 396.
American Federation of Labor, ii: 340,

403, 405, 425.
Ajnerican Golfer, The, ii: 219.
American Magazine, The, i: 8; ii: 49-

51, 377> 381, 382.

American Society of Mechanical En-
gineers, the, i: xii, xv, xxiv, 6,
191, 222, 224, 225, 243, 287, 330,
333j 352, 395) 396, 398, 399. 4oo,
401, 402, 404, 409, 410, 447; ii:
12, 117, 177, 179, 181, 242-260,
286, 296, 329, 362, 364, 372, 374,
378-383, 387, 390. 397. 408, 414,
440.

Ames, Charles Gordon, i: 51.

Amos Tuck School of Administration
and Finance, at Dartmouth College,
i: 362; ii: 353, 392.

Andrews, Commander Philip, ii: 321,
322.

Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science, The, i:
149, 288.

Annapolis, ii: 263, 327, 386.

Antaeus, i: 159.

Apologie der Technik, Coudenhove-
Kalergi, i: 2.

Appleton, Wis., i: 336, 372, 373, 374,
378, 379. 384. 385-

Aristocracy, Emerson, quoted, ii: 368.

Aristotle, i: 102.

Armstrong, Whitworth Company, ii:
115.

Army and Navy Journal, The, ii: 323.

Army, United States, Taylor's work
for, ii: 328-352.

Arnold, Sarah Louise, ii: 363, 364.

A.S.M.E. See American Society Me-
chanical Engineers.

Atlantic City, N. J., ii: 444, 445, 446,
447, 451-

45 5

456

INDEX

Atlantic Monthly, The, i: 22, 31, 83;
ii: 381, 382.

Babbage, Charles, Economy of Ma-
chinery and Manufacturing, i: 100,
219, 220, 225, 230, 278, 279.

Babbott, Frank L., ii: 223, 386, 387,
391, 410, 436, 445, 446, 451.

Bacon, Francis, i: 103, 416.

Baconian system, the, i: xii.

Baker, Charles W., ii: 362,

Baker, Ray Stannard, quoted, i: 8,
416; ii: 377, 382.

Balance of stores, i: 296} ii: 137.

Baldwin Locomotive Works, i: 97,
170; ii: 162.

Baldwin, S. W., ii: 243.

Bancroft, John Sellers, i: 191; ii:
172.

Bancroft, Wilfred, ii: 172.

Barker, J. Ellis, i: 315) ii: 410, 4115
Great Britain's Poverty and Its
Causes, ii: 410.

Barth, Carl G., i: vi, 109, no, 124,

142, 168, 199, 245, 250, 254, 255,

165, 323, 416, 431, 433, 453; ii:

24-36, 39, 40, 68, 69, 70, 71, 109,

120, 127, 136, 138, 140, 141, 156,

157, 158, 163, 171, 172, 178, 180,

181, 184, 196, 241, 242, 251, 253,

254, 289, 290, 303, 305, 334, 33s,

338> 339> 343) 344, 356, 357, 360,

371, 3 75, 389, 445; Supplement to

Frederick W. Taylor's " On the Art

of Cutting Metals," ii: 33, 34.

Basley, William D., i: 364, 392.

Beall, F. F., ii: 353, 354.

Beginnings of New England, The,

Fiske, i: 25.
Bell, Sir Lothian, i: xiv; ii: 256.
Belting, Taylor's work on, i: 243, 244,
382, 430, 440, 444; ii: 127. See
Notes on Belting.

Bender, Robert, ii: 188, 196, 198-202,

205, 210, 213, 214, 230, 232.
Bessemer process, i: 101, 106, 1075

ii: 5.
Bethlehem, Pa., i: 391; ii: 3, 4, 45

47, 49, 55, 157, 167, 168, 188, 229. I
Bethlehem Steel Company, i: in, 119, \
123, 242, 255, 305, 334, 364, 365* \
393, 395, 412, 423, 426, 428, 453,
466, 467; ii: 3-164, 171, 174, 176,
177, 200, 233, 303, 325, 333, 338,
346, 3 5 3, 392, 449; conditions
Taylor found there, ii: 5-8;
Taylor's relations with executives
at, ii: 8-14, 16-18, 20-22, 46, 47,
99, 100, 113, 139-155; methods
and mechanisms he proposed to in-
troduce at, ii: 8-13, 16-20, 120-
138, 139-144, 147; systemizing
yard labor at, ii: 35-67, 69, 70, 72-
78; metal-cutting progress at, ii:
23, 24, 31-35, 79-120; high-speed
steel patent infringement suit of, ii:
86, 87; conditions after Taylor left,
ii: 156-163.
Biologist Speaks of Death, The,

quoted, i: 31.
Blankenburg, Rudolph, ii: 394, 395.
Bonus system. See Wage principles

and methods.
Booth, H. D., quoted, i: 196.
Bowditch, Alfred, i: 456.
Box, moving of, ii: 190-196.
Boxly, home of Taylor, i: xviii, 373,
376, 379; ii: 38, 40, 46, 48, 73,
117, 186-214, 222, 225, 227, 229,
230, 236, 240, 268, 281, 283, 284,
288, 296, 298, 321, 324, 327, 332,
333, 354, 355, 360, 363, 365, 372,
380, 397, 442, 444, 453-
Brandeis, Louis D., i: 7; ii: 320, 366,
369, 370, 371, 372, 375, 376, 385-
Bridgeton, N. J., i: 352.

INDEX

457

Brinley, Charles A., i: 111-114, 121,
125, 127, 129, 130, 155, 157, 166,
169, 171, 213, 381,

Brooklyn Navy Yard, ii: 300, 301,
305. 334-

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers,
ii: 406.

Brown & Sharpe, i: 79.

Bryan, William H., ii: 380.

Bryce, James, interest in Taylor System,
ii: 411-

Bulletin board, i: 2725 ii: 137.

Bulletin des Amis de I'Ecole Poly-
technique, i: xxi.

Butcher, William, i: 106, 107, 113.

Butchers' Steel Works, i: 107.

Canadian Club, Toronto, ii: 398,
403.

Capps, Rear Admiral W. L., ii: 308.

Capital's Need of High-Priced Labor,
Partridge, i: 401.

CarduUo, Forrest E., quoted, i: xv.

Carlyle, quoted, i: 59; ii: 166.

Carnegie Foundation for the Advance-
ment of Teaching, ii: 267, 268.

Cedron, i: 49, 56; ii: 168, 197,
198.

Century Dictionary, The, i: 346.

Century Magazine, The, ii: 390.

Charlottenburg, Germany, technical
school, ii: 270.

Chemical and Metallurgical Engineer-
ing, quoted, ii: 109.

Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, home of
Taylor, i: xxviii, 48, 65; ii: 55,
186, 187, 222, 233, 282.

Chestnut Hill Academy, ii: 225, 226.

Church, A. Hamilton, quoted, i: 286,
287.

Churches of Chri-^t, Social Service
Commission of, ii: 157.

Cilley, Mrs., i: 69.

Cincinnati, University of. College of
Engineering, ii: 271, 294.

Clarage, E. T., quoted, ii: 90.

Clark, B. Preston, quoted, i: 72, 159.

Clark, Clarence M., i: 61, 117, 143,
332.

Clark, Mrs. Clarence M., i: 47, 48,
49; ii: 197-

Clark, E. W., i: 61, 107, no, in,
117, 118.

Clark, Edward W., 3rd., i: v, 47; ii:
221, 278.

Clark, Franklin T., ii: 278, 297.

Clark, Herbert L., ii: 234.

Clark, Joseph, i: 61, 89.

Clark, Sewell, ii: 278.

Classification and symbolization, i:
266, 351-362, 391, 4465 ii: 136.

Clemenceau, Georges, i: xxi.

Cleveland, Grover, i: 335, 387.

Cleveland Advertising Club, i: 347;
ii: 448, 449.

Coburn, F. G., ii: 424, 427.

Codron, C, ii: 97, 106, 256.

Collier's Weekly, ii: 433.

Commons, John R., ii: 411, 432; In-
dustrial Government, ii: 432.

Compte, August, i: 24.

Concrete Costs, Taylor and Thompson,
i: 413-

Concrete Plain and Reinforced, Taylor
and Thompson, i: 413.

Congress of the United States, oppo-
sition to Taylor System, i: xxii; ii:
343> 350, 351-

Conklin, Professor, i: 285.

Conrad, Charles, i: 367.

Control. See Scientific Management.

Cook, Commander Allen M., ii: 324.

Cooke, George Willis, ii: 404.

Cooke, Morris L., i: v, vi, 67; ii:
181, 236, 245, 246, 267, 284-286,
290, 291, 356, 357, 371, 389;

45.8

INDEX

Acadefuic and Industrial Efficiency,
ii: 268; appointed Director of Pub-
lic Works, Philadelphia, ii: 395-397-

Cost Accounting. See Accounting.

Cost clerk, i: 296.

Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard Niko-
laus, quoted, i: 2.

Country Life in America, ii: 203, 205,
207, 212, 213, 4+6.

Cramp, Edwin S., i: 429, 436, 439.

Cramp, William, and Sons Ship and
Engine Building Company (Cramp's
shipyards), i: 118, 120, 423, 424,
429-444, 453) Ji: 20, 79, 83, 92,
93) 97) 240, 303) 320.

Creative Chemistry, quoted, i: xv.

Cresson, Elliot, gold medal, ii: 87.

Crowds, quoted, i: 184.

Crozier, General William, ii: 26, 55,
158, 303) 317) 328-352, 356, 357,
360, 362, 364, 365, 379, 423) 440.

Crucible process, the, i: 106, 107.

Culture, Emerson's essay on, quoted,
i: 390.

11: 451

System
362;

Dabney, Charles W., ii: 271
Daland, Dr. Judson, i: 59;

452-

Daniels, Josephus, 11: 326.

Dartmouth College, Taylor
taught at, i: xxii, xxiv: 353,
conference at, i: 9, 392.

Darwin, Charles, The Origin of Spe-
cies, The Descent of Man, i: 1035
ii: 361.

Davenport, Russell W., i: 111-114,
117, 119, 121, 123, 127, 130, 131,
132, 133, 146, 271, 334, 381, 466;
ii: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 18, 20, 21, 23,
70, 98, 140, 147, 156.

Day, Charles, ii: 320, 321, 324.

Day wage system. See Wage Prin-
ciples and Methods.

Deering, William, and Company, later
Deering Harvester Company, i: 423,
445-

Descent of Man, The, Darwin, i: 103.

Detroit Board of Commerce, ii: 445.

Dewey decimal system, i: 354.

Dewej', John, quoted, i: 82.

Dickinson, Don M., i: 336.

Differential piece rate, the. See Wage
Principles and Methods.

Directors, function of, i: 417-420.

Disciplinarian, the, i: 296, 304.

Dodge, James Mapes, i: 70; ii: 175,
177) 178, 179) 182, 242, 245, 256,
320, 347) 362, 364) 369) 37I) 393)
428.

Dreamers, The, quoted, Kaufman, ii:
440.

Drury, Horace B., Scientific Manage-
ment, i: 9; address by, i: 99, 212.

Du Barry, Count John, ii: 186, 187,
190.

Dunlap, John R., quoted, i: 410.

Du Pont, Coleman, i: 445, 446.

Du Pont, T. C, i: 450.

Dutch, Pennsylvania, ii: 4, 43.

Earle, E. p., ii: 123, 128, 140.

Economic Club of Indianapolis, ii: 403.

Economy of Machinery and Manu-
facture, Babbage, i: 100, 219, 220,
225) 278.

Education, Taylor's views on, i: 51,
67, 68, 74, 125-127, 146; ii: 226,
260-280, 290-293.

Efficiency, Taylor's attitude towards,
ii: 387-389-

Efficiency, H. Emerson, quoted, ii: 208,

Efficiency engineers, Taylor's work dis-
tinguished from, i: 346, 347; i: 208.

Electric Journal, The, ii: 273.

Eliot, Charles W., ii: 266, 274.

Emerson, Harrington, i: 7; ii: 208,

INDEX

459

320,
425.

324, 348, 370, 371,

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quoted, i:

xxviii, 40, 41, 42, 87, 96, 140,

390; ii: 2, 92, 121, 368.
Encyclopedia Britannica, i: 99; ii: 80.
Engineer and Executive compared, i:

148, 149, 294, 295.
Engineer as Economist, The, Towne,

i: 398.
Engineering, in the 1870's, i: 100-105.
Engineering Magazine, The, i: 410;

ii: 158.
Engineering News, The, i: 291; ii:

362.
England, labor conditions in, i: 315,

406; ii: 54, 408, 410 j mechanical

engineering in, i: 99, loo; metal

cutting experiments in, i: 246, 256;

high speed steel, attitude towards, ii:

86, 91 j engineering education in, ii:

275-
Enterprise Hydraulic Works, i: 77.
Essays to do Good, Cotton Mather, i:

28.
Evans, Constructor Holden A., ii. 302,

307-309, 312, 318, 319, 320, 322,

326, 338, 358, 415.
Evans, Commander (Rear Admiral)

Robley D., i: 336, 378, 379.
Evening Post, The, of New York,

quoted, i: xxiii, 126.
Evvart, William Dana, ii: 177.
Exception principle, i: 302; ii: 301.
Executive and Engineer compared, i:

148, 149, 294, 295.
Exeter. See Phillips Exeter Academy.

Fannon, William A., i: 176, 188,

378, 389-
Fawcett, H., Political Economy, quoted,

i: 319.
Feiss, Richard A., ii: 407, 447, 448.

Fels, Joseph, ii: 234.

Fenner, David C, ii: 22.

Ferrell & Jones, i: 77.

Ferrell & Muckle, i: 77.

Festuca rubra, ii: 209.

Fielding, Mantle, ii: 188, 189.

First Principles, Spencer, quoted, i: 344.

Fiske, John, The Beginnings of New

England, i: 25.
Foundation Michelin, for study of the

Taylor System, i: xxiii.
France, appreciation of Taylorism in,

i: xxi, xxiii; ii: 116, 257; early

timing of labor in, i: 225, 230;

Taylor's liking for, i: 67; ii: 443.
Frankfurter, Prof. Felix, ii. 417, 418,

419, 420, 421, 422, 429, 445.
Franklin, Benjamin, i: 26, 28, 32, 83,

84, 185; Autobiography, quoted, i:

204.
Franklin Institute, the, i: 108; ii: 29,

87> 177-
Freeman, John R., ii: 245.
Freeman, Stuart E., ii: 25, 30, 31.
Friends. See Quaker.
Fritz, John, i: v, loi, 151; ii: 5, 6, 8.
Functional principle. See Organiza-
tion.
Furness, Dr. William H., i: 51, 332,

Gain Sharing, Towne, i: 401.

Gang boss, i: 296, 304, 323, 324; ii:
121.

Gantt, Henry L., i: vi, 112, 174, 196,
197, 201, 240, 245, 251, 252, 258,
271, 311, 330, 447, 458; ii: 23,
24> 32, 35, 40, 68, 69, 72, 128,
132, 133, 138, 140, 158, 181, 256,
287, 318, 319, 320, 321, 324, 348,
356, 357, 371, 372, 389, 393> 426,

Garrison, William Lloyd, i: 40, 41,
61.

Gay, Dean Edwin F., i: 319, 426; ii:

460

INDEX

275, 288, 289, 290—293, 296—298,

353-
Genealogical and Memorial History of

the State of New Jersey, quoted,

i: 29, 31.
Germans, the, Taylor's opinion of, i:

65, 66; ii: 443, 444. See also

Germany,
Germantown Academy, i: 69.
Germantown Cricket Club, i: 88.
Germantown, Philadelphia, Taylor's

birthplace, i: 23, 48, 49, 50, 51, 56,

57> 67.
"Germantown Scientific Society," i: 56.
Germany, metal-cutting experiments in,

i: 246. See also Germans, the.
Gilbreth, Frank B., ii: 372, 383.
Gill, Laura D., ii: 268.
Gillespie, James, ii: 39, 40.
Gilman, N. P., quoted, i: 401.
Godfrey, Dr. HoUis, ii: 185, 347,

348.
Goldmark, Miss Josephine, i: 460, 463.
Golf, Taylor's interest in, i: 453, 454;

ii: 15, 70, 202-223, 446.
Gompers, Samuel, ii: 403, 406, 407,

425.
Goodrich, Commander (Rear Admiral)

Casper, F., i: 335, 336, 379, 381,

384; ii: 200, 299, 300-302, 304,

305, 306, 310, 311, 317, 318, 322,

369) 373-
Government Efficiency, Taylor, ii: 302,

303, 304, 307, 328.
Grass, Taylor's experiments with, ii:

202-214.
Great Britain's Po'certy and Its Causes,

Barker, ii: 410.
Greenman, Milton J, ii: 285.

Hadfield, Sir Robert, ii: 91.
Halsey, Frederick A., i: 401, 402, 403,
404; ii: 338.

Halsey plan, the. See Halsey, Fred-
erick A.

Harrah, Charles J., i: 11 7-1 21, 151,
169, 334.

Harrah, Charles J., Jr., i: 11 8-1 21,
127, 198, 199, 337-339> 380, 381,
456; ii: 15.

Harrison, Birge, quoted, i: 56-58, 92,
93 i ii: 43^, 446, 447-

Harrison, G. Charter, What is Wrong
with Cost Accounting, i: 365,
366.

Harvard Engineering Society of N. Y.,
ii: 266, 268.

Harvard Graduate School of Business
Administration, i: 289, 426; Taylor
System taught at, i: xxiii, xxiv; ii:
288, 289, 353; Taylor lectures at,
i: xxv, 90, 130, 151, 188, 281, 283,

290, 300, 302, 321, 323, 325, 329,
33o> 356, 366, 418; ii: 293, 296-
298.

Harvard University, ii: 26, 265, 267,
274, 275, 281; Taylor prepares for,
i: 3, 69; passes entrance examination
to, i: 75 ; takes home study course of,
i: 227; serves on Visiting Committee
on Engineering, ii: 266, 267.

Hathaway, Horace K., i: vi, 298, 360,
361, 371; ii: 180, 181, 256, 290,

291. 305. 356, 357. 369. 37i> 389.
427.

Hawes, Rev. Oscar B., i: 70, 71.

Hearings before Special Committee of
the House of Representatives to In-
vestigate the Taylor and other Sys-
tejns of Shop Management, i: ii, 9;
ii: 185, 241, 345, 346, 347, 374,
393, 400, 405, 413; Taylor's testi-
mony before, i: 5, 9-17, 73, 79,
ii6, 126, 157, 160-164, 166, 179,
192, 213, 217, 223, 224, 233-236,
240, 250, 252, 307, 432, 441; ii:

INDEX

461

28, 45, 56-<57> 76, 12?) 163, 348;
findings of, ii: 348, 349.

Henry, Naval Constructor, ii: 308, 318.

Hig-h-speed steel, Taylor's discovery,
i: XV, 428, 439; ii: 79-118, 119,
453. See Bethlehe?n Steel Comfany.

History of Portland, quoted, i: 35.

Hollis, Prof. Ira N., ii: 265, 266,
274> 275, 281, 294, 295, 394.

Holmes, Charles L., i: 375.

Holton, Dr. and Mrs. David Parsons,
quoted, i: 33, 34.

Hobbs, Major F. E., ii: 329, 331, 332,
340.

Horner, Joseph G., The Tool, ii: 80.

House of Representatives, the Special
Committee of. See Hearings before
Special Coinmittee.

Howell, Edward I. H., i: 78.

Hoxie, Prof. Robert F., Member
special committee to investigate
Scientific Management, ii: 424, 425,
426, 427, 429, 439; Scientific Man-
agement and. Labor, ii: 357, 439.

Humphries, Dr. Alexander C, ii: 269,
278.

Humphreys, Clifton S., i: 384-385.

Hussey, Thankful, i: 37, 38, 375.

Hutton, F. R., ii: 181, 244.

Illinois Manufacturers' Associa-
tion, ii: 392.

Illinois, University of, ii: 293, 294,
354.

Industrial democracy, i: 314-331. See
Labor froble?n, Taylor^s vieivs on.

Industrial Education, Person, quoted, i:
104.

Industrial Leadership, Gantt, quoted, i:
311.

Industrial Management, i: 254, 410;
ii: 34, 255.

Industrial Relations, i: 237.

Industrial Relations Commission, ii: 27,
404, 411, 424-448; Taylor's testi-
mony before, i: 61, 156, 214, 216,
237, 238; ii: 244, 399.

Industrial World, The, quoted, ii: 90.

Industry, large scale brought about by
machinery and machine tools, i: xiii,
99, 277, 279, 280J importance of
management to, i: xiii; ii: 432. See
also Management.

Instruction cards, i: 272, 289, 296, 304,
305, 324> 3345 ii: 136.

Inspection, i: 296, 304, 324; ii: 121.

International Association of Machin-
ists, ii: 340, 341, 343, 400.

Interstate Commerce Commission, i:
365; rate hearings of 1910, i: 6;
ii: 320, 369, 370, 371, 373.

Iron7nonger, The, quoted, ii: 117.

Irwin, Will, ii: 390.

James, William, quoted, i: 182.
Johnson Company, the, i: 423, 424,

427> 445> 449j 45°, 45i-
Johnstonbaugh, Dr. C. L., ii: 55.
Johnston, Archibald, ii: 140.
Joy, H. B., ii: 354.

Kaufman, Herbert, The Dreamers,
quoted, ii: 440.

Kellogg, James, ii: 22, 100, 140.

Kellogg, Vernon, quoted, i: 31.

Kendall, Henry P., i: 351, 361, 362,
369, 370; ii: 361, 362, 364, 393,
417, 426, 427; Types of Manage-
ment: Unsystematized, Systematized,
and Scientific, i : 351, 393.

Kent, Robert T., ii: 372, 383.

Kent, Prof. William, i: 401; ii: 217.

Kimball, Admiral William W., ii: 323.

King, Stanley, ii: 417.

Klyce, Lieut. Scudder, i: 454; ii: 386,
4i4> 433-436) 438.

462

INDEX

Klyce, Mrs. Scudder, Scientific Man-
agement and the Moral La-w, ii: 386,
387.

Knox, S. L. Griswold, ii: 24, 33-35.

Labor, Committee on. House of
Representatives, ii: 77, 343.

Labor problem, the, i: xx, xxi, 3, 4,
i53> 154, 205-215, 222, 383, 401,
402j ii: 129—136, 236, 237, 288;
Taylor's views on, i: 5, 11, 157,
158, 192-195, 207—209, 212—218,
224, 240, 241, 268, 310-313, 318-
331, 402-408, 410-412, 434, 451,
460, 463, 465; ii: II — 13, 51—55,
76, 77, 126, 127, 133, 137, 159,
184, 237—239, 401, 408, 409, 412,
413, 418. See also Labor unions,
Wage principles and methods.

Labor Temple of N. Y., i: 72.

Labor unions, i: 9, 210, 272, 273; ii:
307, 308, 324-326, 331, 332, 340-
343, 346-348, 352, 374, 375, 393,
400—416, 435, 439; Taylor's views
on, i: 9, 314—316, 406; ii: 341, 342,
402, 406, 407, 410-416, 419—424,
426—432. See also Labor problem,
Wage principles and methods.

Lamont, Daniel, i: 336, 387.

Langhammer, A. J., quoted, ii: 109.

Law versus Private Opinion as a Basis
of Management, address by Taylor,
i: 102 ; ii: 445.

League Island, Navy Yard, ii: 302,
305, 311.

Le Chatelier, Prof. Henri, i: xiv, xxi,
126, 242; ii: 87, 88, 100, 116, 117,
256, 443.

Lee, Francis B., quoted, i: 29, 31.

Lee, Gerald Stanley, Crozvds, quoted, i:
184; ii: 240.

Leibert, Harry, ii: 122.

Leibert, John, ii: 140, 147.

Leibert, Owen F., ii: 6, 18.

Lenin, N., quoted, i: xxi, xxii.

Lewis, Wilfred, i: 62, 109, no, 128,
142, 144, 337, 425; ii: 24, 175, 179,
254, 444.

Linderman, Robert P., i: 467; ii: 5,
7, 10, 14, 16-18, 22, 46, 47, 113,
122, 123, 139, 140, 14.2, 144-147,
152-156.

Link-Belt Engineering Company, i:
447; ii: 114, 162, 175, 177, 179-
185, 240, 242, 281, 283, 284, 28S,
298, 307, 331, 338, 346, 347, 360,
369, 428.

Literary Digest, The, ii: 273.

Living Age, The, i: 2.

Lodge, H. C, ii: 351.

Loewe, Ludwig, ii: 115.

Longfellow, Samuel, i: 50.

Lorain Steel Company, the, i: 423,

424, 427, 445, 446-
Lowell, A. Lawrence, ii: 274.

Machine Control, i:
224, 244, 245, 248,
268, 429, 440;. ii:

206, 220, 221,
249, 250-252,
23, 24,

16,

[23,

78, 180, 305.
See

The,

32-35, 119,

Machines and machine tools.
Industry and Management.

Machinery, i: xv; ii: 258.

Maclaurin, Richard C, ii: 267.

Making of a Putting Green,
Taylor, ii: 203, 446.

Management, i: 207, 209, 214, 215,
267, 2S8, 292, 294, 301, 321, 330,
341, 345, 350, 353, 355, 37°, 421;
ii: 174, 175, 287, 447; importance
of, in industry, i: xiii, influence of
large-scale industry and machine
tools on, i: 153-155, 157, 158, 277-
283, 287, nature of, when Taylor
entered industry, i: 280-283; un-
evenness of, i: 221, 349, 394;

INDEX

463

Taylor's influence on, i: xiii, xvi-
xix; ii: 453; of initiative and incen-
tive, i: 12, 241, 261 j of railroads, i:
7; ii: 369, 370, 373, 374; of col-
leges, ii: 267, 268; A.S.M.E. papers
on, i: 222, 398-404, 409; ii: 251,
383.

Management Engineering, i: 365.

Manchester Association of Engineers,
i: 246.

Manchester Municipal School of Tech-
nology, i: 246; ii: 117, 256.

Manufacturing Investment Company,

i: 335; 336, 3455 3^3, 364, 372"

393, 416; ii: 299.
Mare Island Navy Yard, California,

ii: 306-309, 312, 415.
Marine Review, The, quoted, ii: 320.
Marks, Lionel S., ii: 26.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

i: 3755 ii: 267, 277, 394.
Mechanisms of scientific management.

See Taylor System.
Meier, Col. E. D., ii: 382.
Merkle-Wiley Broom Co., ii: 398.
Merrick, Dwight V., i: 156, 412, 413;

ii: 22, 31, 338, 343.
Metal-Cutting, experiments in, by

Taylor, i: xiii-xv, xix, 224, 237-

252, 253, 254, 256, 258, 430-441;

ii: 23-25, 31-35, 79-120, 170-172,

252-259, 453; by others, i: 246,

247.
Methods control, i: 14, 206, 224, 240;

ii: II, 136, 137. See Time study,

Inspection, Instruction cards.
Meyer, George von L., i: 402; ii: 310,

311, 313, 314, 316, 317, 319, 320,

321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327.
Meyers, Lt. G. J., quoted, i: 297. '

Michelin, Edouvard, i: xxiii.
Midvale Steel Company, i: 3-5, 93,

97-342, 363, 424, 430, 431, 432,

438; ii: 6, 12, 24, 39, 82, 92—94,
96, 98, 99, 100, loi, 104, 126, 146,
i47> 162, 303, 329, 333, 346;
origin of, i: 106, 107; advanced
management of, in 1878, i: 99,
106-115; how Taylor came to go
there, i: 3, 93; his promotion, i:
116; his relations with executives,
i: 117-125, 129-137, 144, 333,
334; his relations with workmen, i:
157-189, 314-331; ii: 437; his
work as mechanical engineer, i: 190-
201; soldiering of men at, i: 157,
160, 206, 207, 213; forces men to
increase production, i: 4, 5, 157-
164; resolves to find substitute for
force, i: 5, 214, 215; seeks a stand-
ard day's work, i : 216, 217; time
study, i: 223-236, 353; begins
metal-cutting investigation, i: 224,
236-254; establishes standards, i:
257-262; system to support stand-
ards, i: 263-273; resultant prob-
lems of organization, i: 274—303;
financial incentives to support stand-
ardization, i: 304-313; Taylor's
resignation, i: 3 34-3 37;' after
Taylor left, i: 337-342.

Miller, Emlen Hare, i: 226, 228.

Miller, Fred J., ii: 407-410.

Milwaukee Federated Trades Council,
ii: 400.

Mind in the Making, The, quoted,
Robinson, i: 93, 123.

Mitchell, Frances, i: 376, 377; ii: 282,
446, 452.

Mitchell, John, ii: 405.

Mitcherlich, Prof. Andrew, i: 336, 378.

Montier, Amanda, i: 86, 143.

Mushet, Robert, i: 431, 432; ii: 80.

Mushet steel, i: 431, 432, 435-439;
ii: 80, 82, 83, 84, 95, 96, 97.

Mutual Trades Association, ii: 407.

464

INDEX

Napoleon, i: 86, 87, 119, 170, 177.
National Manufacturers' Association,

ii: 407.
Navy, United States, Taylor's work

for, ii: 299-327.
Newberry, Truman H., ii: 300, 301,

302, 304, 305, 306, 309, 310, 311,

316, 317, 318, 322.
Newbold Family, genealogy of, i:

32) 33-
Newbold, Sidney, ii: 22.
Ne<w Ideals in Business, Tarbell,

quoted, ii: 347.
New York Call, The, ii: 405.
Nicetown Club, i: 71.
Nicolson, Dr. J. T., ii: 117, 256,

257.
Niles-Bement-Pond Company, ii: 86.
Nomenclature. See Symbols.
Nomenclature of Machine Details,

Oberlin Smith, quoted, i: 352, 353.
Northern Electrical Manufacturing

Company, i: 423, 424, 427, 445,

446, 449.
Norton, Charles D., ii: 316, 317.
Notes on Belting, Taylor, i: 243, 395.

O'CoNNELL, James, ii: 340, 342.

Oiling machines, example of Taylor's
control, i: 268-270.

O'Leary, John R., ii: 347.

Olmstead Bros., ii: 188.

On the Art of Cutting Metals, Taylor,
i: ii, xiv, xx, xxv, 205, 228, 239-
245) 251, 254, 262, 268, 271, 431,
432, 435) 437) 438;. ii: 34) 82-85,
97, 109, no, 116, 117, 120, 121,
355; preparation of, ii: 252-259.

Open-hearth process, the, i: 106,
107.

Order of work clerk, i: 296; ii: 121,
123.

Organization, distinction from system,

i: 274, 296; origin of industrial
organization, i: 276-280; military
type of, i: 281-283, 289, 290;
Taylor's functional type of, i: 15,
284-304, 323-328, 417-420, 464;
ii: 19, 121-123, 134, 268.

Origin of Species, The, Darwin, i: 103.

Osborne & Company, ii: 82, 96.

Otterson, J. E., i: 148, 149, 288, 295,
299.

Outerbridge, Prof. A. E., ii: 171.

Outline of the Organization of a Man-
ufacturing Establishment under
Modern Scientific or Task Manage-
ment, Taylor, ii: 296.

Outlook, The, ii: 386, 387.

Packard Motor Car Co., ii: 353,
354-

Payne, Colonel Oliver H., i: 336, 387.

Paris Exposition, the, i: 246; ii: 80,
84, 87, 115, 116, 117, 118.

Partridge, W. E., i: 401.

Past and Present, Carlyle, quoted, ii:
167.

Pastorius, Francis Daniel, ii: 186.

Patents, Taylor's personal views on,
i: 224—226.

Penn, William, i: 58, 415; ii: 186.

Pennsylvania, University of, i: xxiii,
xxiv, 6, 108, hi; ii: 226, 240, 260-
256, 273, 293, 299.

Perfetual Forces, Emerson, quoted, ii:
2.

Perronet, i: 230.

Person, Dr. Harlow S., i: v; Industrial
Education, i: 104; Shaping your
Management to meet Developing
Industrial Conditions, i: 341; ii:
353) 356, 392.

Personnel manager. See Disciplin-
arian.

Petre, Mr., i: 334) 338.

INDEX

465

Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, i:

109.
Philadelphia Country Club, ii: 220,

222.
Philadelphia Cricket Club, ii: 222,

234, 235.
Phillips Exeter Academy, i: 3, 58, 68,

69, 72-74, 76, 230; ii: 263.
Phillips, John S., ii: 377.
Piece-rate system. See Wage frinci-

fles and methods.
Piece-Rale System, A, Taylor, i: 213,

304> 305> 314) 39^, 39^, 402, 402-

410, 424, 4455 ii: 9, 173, 252, 371,

372.
Piez, Charles, ii: 178.
Pig-iron handling, systemlzed, ii: 37-

55-
Pine Valley, N. J., ii: 202, 214.
Planning Department, the, i: xxi, 15,

295) 296, 305, 323, 324, 360, 369;

ii: 19, 121, 123, 125, 138.
Planning Defartment, The, Hathaway,

quoted, i: 298, 361.
Plimpton Press, i: 351; ii: 361, 417.
Political Economy, Fawcett, quoted,

i: 319.
Portenar, A. J., Problems of Organ-
ized Labor, ii: 236-238.
Portsmouth Navy Yard, ii: 319.
Pravda, the official Soviet organ,

quoted, i: xxi.
" Premium Plan," the. See Wage

Principles and Methods.
Premium Plan of Paying for Labor,

The, Halsey, i: 401.
Present State of the Art of Industrial

Management, The, 1: 224, 286, 287.
Princeton University, i: 44, 285; ii:

267.
Principles of Scientific Management,

The, Taylor, i: xx, xxi, 17, 255,

458) 459, 460, 464; ii: 38, 41, 42,

43) 48) 49) 286, 372-382, 384,

390, 391.
Pritchett, Henry S., ii: 267.
Problems of Organized Labor,

Portenar, ii: 236.
Problem in Profit Sharing, A, Kent,

i: 401.
Production clerk, i: 296.
Profit Sharing, i: 401; Taylor's atti-
tude towards, i: 460; ii: 430.
Prohibition, Taylor's attitude towards,

i: 178.
Pugh, Sarah (Mrs. Isaac), i: 50.
Pullman Co., ii: 445.
Puritanism, in Taylor's ancestry, i:

22-28.
Putmut, ii: 229-232, 285.

Quakerism, in Taylor's ancestry, i:

23, 24, 29—40, 45, 63; ii: 228.
Quill Club, ii: 277.

Railroad Rate Hearings of 19 10,

i: 6-8, 410; ii: 320, 370-373.
Rate-cutting, evils of, i: 210—214; ii:

126.
Rate-fixing. See Time Study.
Reber, Dean, ii: 400.
Recording clerk, i: 296.
Redfield, William C, i: 233; ii: 345,

346, 405.
" Red Gate," Germantown, Taylor's

home, ii: 168, 169, 170, 173, 186,

196, 202, 229, 245.
Renold, Hans, i: 424.
Repair boss, i: 296, 324.
Revue de Metallurgie, La, i: xiv, xxi:

ii: 116.
Rheinfeldt, John, ii: 184, 185.
Rice, Calvin W., ii: 247-249,
Robinson, James Harvey, The Mind in

the Making, quoted, i: 93, 123.
Robinson, John, i: 26, 34, 83.

466

INDEX

Rock Island Arsenal, ii: 330, 331, 333,

340, 343) 347) 400.
Roosevelt, Franklin D., ii: 326.
Root, Elihu, ii: 351.
Route clerk, i: 296.
Routing, i: 358-360, 370, 449; ii:

334-
Ruggles, Captain, ii: 70, 71.
Russia, Soviet, attitude towards the

Taylor System, i: xx, xxi.

Sabine, Dean Wallace C, ii: 288,
289.

Sales engineering, Taylor's anticipa-
tion of, i: 465, 466.

Sayre, Robert H., Jr., ii: 7, 18, 188.

Schmidt, pig-iron handler, ii: 4, 43-
45) 47) 48, 49) 50, 55-

Schneider, Herman, ii: 271.

Schwab, Charles M., i: 149; ii: 3, 5,
154) 157) 160, 161, 162, 164.

Scientific Management, Drury, quoted,
i: 9, 212.

Scientific Management (the philosophy
and principles), Taylor the father
of, i: xii, xiii; origin of term, i:
358; ii: 371, 372; beginnings of, i:
5, 6, 205, 206, 214-222; public first
hears of, i: 7;, world influence of,
i: xiii-xxiii; basis of, the scientific
determination of fact, i: xii, xiii,
13, 216, 217, 340, 351; ii: 57, 58,
98, 107-110, 191, 192, 200, 207,
208; Taylor's principles of investi-
gation, i: 190, 195, 247, 253, 256,
434; scientific management a body
of principles, ii: 309; Taylor's four
principles, i: 9-19, 329; standard-
ization, i: xvi, 253-262, 268, 345-
349. 355) 408, 429, 430, 449, 450;
control, i: xvi, 262-273, 350, 358;
ii: 61, 120; separation of planning
and executive, i: 15, 191, 192, 279,

287, 294, 421-423; ii: 61, 120,
129-136; scientific selection and de-
velopment of workers, i: 14, 17,
179, 180, 264, 323, 329, 463; ii:
42, 43) 45) 48, 58, 62, 63, 124,
135, 136; motives actuating, i: 340,
341; involves a mental revolution,
i: 10, 94, 340; ii: 124, 182, 387,
389;, essentially cooperative, i : 11,
15-17) 291, 314-331, 340; what
it is not, i: 10; Taylor's expositions
of, i: XXV, 9-17, 397, 398, 404,
405, 409; ii: 51-55, 173, 233-242,
252-256, 281-298, 362, 378-384,
386, 389, 391, 392, 397-402; teach-
ing of, i: xxiv; ii: 289, 290, 353;
misapprehensions of, i: xxiii, 317}
ii: 362-365, 383, 384; general op-
position to, i: xxii, 416, 420, 421,
439) ii: 10, 15, 16, 17, 182, 340-
343) 350, 35I) 389) 39°) 403-406,
425, 439; labor's attitude towards,
i: 9, i6, 272, 292, 306, 307, 311,
330, 421; ii: 125, 325, 326, 329,
340-352, 399-406, 425, 426, 431,
439. See also Taylor System.

Scientific Management and Labor,
Hoxie, ii: 357, 425, 439.

Scientific Management and the Moral
La'w, Mrs. Klyce, ii: 386, 387.

Scientific Method, the, i: 24, 28, 80-
83. 93) 99-105, 123, 204, 247; ii:
118.

Scott, Charles F., ii: 274, 275.

Sederholm, Prof. J. J., ii: 126.

Self-hardening steel, i: 431, 432, 436-
439; ii: 79, 80, 84, 85, 92, 98,
108. See also Mushet steel.

Self -Reliance, Emerson, quoted, i: 96.

Sellers, William, i: 107-110, 112 118-
124, 133-136, 146, 151, 153, 174,
186, 187, 190, 191, 221, 222, 232,
237, 238, 239) 24I) 245, 248, 250,

INDEX

467

266, 338, 381, 438; ii: 28, 68, 170,

171, 172.
Sellers, William, and Company, i: 107,

124, 134, 199, 200, 254, 360, 438,

447; ii: 24, 28, 29, 30, 31, 114,

137, 141, 162, 170, 171, 172, 174,

180, 240.
Senate, the. See Congress of the

United States.
Shafing your Management to Meet

Developing Industrial Conditions,

Person, quoted, i: 341.
Sharpe, "Old Man," quoted, i: 78,

79-
Shartle, Charles W., i: 180-182, 188,

189.
Shaw, George Bernard, quoted, i:

165.
Sheffield, England, steel industry, i:

106, 107; ii: 86, 91, 117, 118.
Sherman, Stuart P., quoted, i: 22, 26,

28, 83.
Shop committees, ii: 428-430.
Shop Management, Taylor, i: xx, 141,

168, 180, 183, 208, 221, 226, 229,

282, 283 293, 301, 304, 309, 341,

348, 349) 360, 403, 411, 420, 422,

439; ii: i9> 37) 75> i24> 128, 129,

133) 173) 174) 179) 236, 259, 306,

307, 308, 344, 371, 372, 382, 383,

406, 447.
Shoveling, systemized, ii: 56-67, 72.
Simonds Rolling Machine Company, i:

337. 392, 423. 424, 425) 445) 446,

447) 448, 45I) 452, 455-467-
Simonds, Walter A., i: 337, 338, 384,

392, 423, 456, 457.
Sinclair, George M., i: 250, 251, 258,

271.
Sinclair, Upton, ii: 50-55.
Slide rule (Earth's), i: 431; ii: 34,

35, 120, 138, 180, 184, 358.
Slosson, Edwin E., quoted, i: xv.

Smith, Adam, Wealth of Nations, i:
225, 261.

Smith, Oberlin, N omenclature of Ma-
chine Details, i: 352, 353, 360.

Society for the Promotion of Engineer-
ing Education, ii: 272, 273, 277.

Society to Promote the Science of
Management. See Taylor Society.

" Soldiering," Taylor's attitude to-
wards, i: 4, 160—164, 207—215; ii:
408-410.

Speed boss, i: 296, 323, 324; ii: 121,
123, 124.

Special House Committee. See Hear-
ings before Special Committee of
the House of Representatives.

Spencer, Herbert, i: 71, 344.

Spooner, Dr. and Mrs. Edward A., i:
60.

Spooner, Louise M. See Mrs. Frederick
W. Taylor.

Spooner, Mrs. Edward A., ii: 230.

Springfield Arsenal, ii: 330.

Standard Dictionary, quoted, i: 18.

Standard Oil Company, ii: 336, 387.

Standardization. See Scientific Man-
agement.

Standing order file, i: 270, 271.

Stanwood, ii: 243.

Steam hammer, Taylor's, i: 196-198;
ii: 146, 147-

Steel Motor Works, i: 445, 448,
449.

Stelzle, Rev. Charles, ii: 157.

Stevens Institute, i: 127, 250, 252,
332; ii: 20, 177, 269, 277.

Stevenson, Robert Louis, quoted, i: 23.

Stiles, Ella P., ii: 254.

Stores control, i: 268, 360, 370, 371,
447)1 ii: 16, 136.

Stork, Theophilus B., i: 232.

Stotesbury, Mr., ii: 152.

Success, lecture by Taylor, i: 77, 79,

468

INDEX

84, 130-133, 135, 136, 195, 197,

198; ii: 293-296, 391.
Sufflement to Frederick W. Taylor's

" On the Art of Cutting Metals,"

Earth, ii: 33, 34, 255.
Symbols. See Classification and synt-

bolization.

Tabor Manufacturing Company,
i: no, 368; ii: 162, 175 176, 179-
185, 240, 242, 278, 279, 281, 283,
284, 288, 298, 307, 317, 331, 369.

Taft, President William H., i: 97;
ii: 305, 306, 309, 310, 314, 315,
316, 317, 321, 335, 338.

Talbot, Prof. A. N., ii: 294.

Tarbell, Ida M., i: 91; New Ideals in
Business, ii: 347.

Tardy, Lieut. W. B., ii: 317, 362.

Task and bonus. See Wage principles
and methods.

Taylor, Edward Winslow, i: 49, 69,
75-

Taylor, Elizabeth P. A., ii: 168, 227,
229.

Taylor, Emily Winslow, mother of
Frederick W., i: 23, 33, 37, 38, 39,
40, 44-52, 55, 63, 66, 86, 91; ii:
170.

Taylor Family, genealogy of, i: 29-

32-

Taylor, Franklin, father of Frederick
W., i: 23, 29, 32, 33, 4+-54> 64,
66, 77.

Taylor, Frederick Winslozv, A Me-
morial Volume, i: 201.

Taylor, Frederick W., birth of, i:
xiii, 23, 49; genealogy of, i: 27;
Puritan and Quaker inheritance of,
i: 28, 30, 38, 43, 83; education
and academic and professional rec-
ognition of, i: 3, 6, 51, 52, 53, 55,
63, 64, 66-76, 87, 116, 127, 128,

426; ii: 87, 226, 243, 244, 265,
266, 297, 397; apprenticeship of,
i: 3, 76-80; marriage of, i: 132;
home life of, i: 53, 54, 60, 61, 76,
92, 128, 142, 143, 332, 372-374,
389) 392, 393> 426, 427, 452, 453;
ii: 15, 167-170, 188-190, 224-232,
39 3> 44 1 > 442; principal events of
professional and public life of, see
Contents Vol. I, Contents Vol. II;
constructive life work of, see
Scientific Management, Taylor Sys-
tem; death of, ii: 451-453; physi-
cal and nervous disposition of, i:
4, 58, 59> 74-76, 122, 129, 144,
153, 170, 214, 317, 389, 453-4555
ii: 20, 121, 167, 245, 323, 347,
394, 399, 434, 435, 438, 443, 444,
446, 451-453; courage of, i: 4, 62,
146, 167, 174, 176, 196, 379, 392;
ii: 146, dramatic instinct of, i: xxv,
88, 89, 153, 165, 452; ii: 73;
earnestness and enthusiasm of, i: 75,
76, 82, 128, 165, 170-171, 238,

239, 241, 333, 378, 389, 392; ii:
9, 14; genius of for detail, i: xxvi,
142, 199, 233, 268-272, 414, 417,
447; ii: 39, no, 136; intensity of
temperament of, i: xxv, 58, 59, 75,
122, 129, 167, 389; ii: 78, 150,
185, 197, 215, 286, 361, 429, 436*
440; inventiveness of, i: 56-58, 66,
80, 125, 131, 142, 143, 190, 196-
198, 199—201, 241, 242, 266, 382,
383; ii: 190, 193, 216-218; mis-
chievousness of, i: 60-62, 64, 69,
72, 89, 90, 156, 189; ii: 230-232,
250, 297, 449; practicality of, i:
xvi, 172, 173, 334; ii: i73, 250,
social instinct of, i: xxv, 13, 43,
44, 86-88, 143, 144, 150, 151, 218,
374, 380, 383, 387, 427, 452J ii:
176, 188, 196, 199, 200, 206, 222,

INDEX

469

233-235, 246, 282, 283, 298, 299,

335, 354, 356, 39i> 394, 396, 397,
437, 446; tact of, i: 155, 156, 191,
459; ii: 17, 18, 27, 99, 123, 148,
321 j unpretentiousness of, i: 18,
72, 84, 122, 390; ii: 188, 219, 220,
223, 228, 249, 253, 257, 293, 315,
385, 386, 389, 433, 436; willpower
and persistence of, i: xxvii, 4, 5,
129, 156, 165, 174, 262; ii: 23, 35,
92, 99, 253, 287, 288, 3955 as engi-
neer, i: 127, 148-150, 190-210, 241,
242, 266, 379, 382, 465; ii: 99,
188-195, 197, 198, 279; as execu-
tive, i: xxvi, xxvii, 4, 43, 44, 148-
189, 217, 218, 283, 376, 377, 381,
382; as promoter, i: 393-395; as
scientist and investigator, i: xiv, xv,
XXV, xxviii, 6, 55, 56, 82, 89, 93,
94, 123, 142, 150, 230, 231, 243,
244, 246-248, 253-256, 263, 294,
434, 435; ii: 81, 98, 109, 116, 117,
191— 193, 196, 202-214, 215, 260;
as speaker, i: 9, 397; ii: 56-67,
244, 249, 251, 252, 254, 260, 282,
284, 285, 295, 296, 354, 391, 392,
397-399, 450; as writer, i: xxiv,
XXV, 9, 395, 397, 398; ii: 152, 173,
252, 254, 255, 282, 293, 295;
personal philosophy of, i: 77, 78,
83-85, 87, 88, 130-133, 135-142,
145-147, 150-153, 155, 156, 167,
182, 183, 185, 188, 207, 291, 351,
363; ii: 51-55, 70, 344, 345, 423,
438; education, views on, q.v.,
" efficiency," views on, q.v., labor
problems, views on, q.v., labor
unions, views on, q.v., patents,
views on, q.v., wage principles,
views on, and methods, q.v., in-
vestments, his personal, attitude
towards, i: 185, 389, 395; ii: 167;
expenditure of employer's money.

attitude towards, i: 120, 199, 334,
380-382, 437, 439; ii: 139; finan-
ciers, attitude towards, i: 387-389,
439, 466; opposition, attitude to-
wards, i: 175, 188, 339, 377, 378,
416, 443, 444, 456, 4575 ii: 16,
21, 45-47> 68, 70, 121, 148, 150,
157, 164, 182, 219, 239, 341, 342,
347, 348, 390, 401, 403, 405, 435,
439; religion, attitude towards, i:
69-72; ii: 436, 438; sports, attitude
towards, i: 24, 56, 60, 66-68, 72,
75, 88, 117, 142, 143, 146, 453,
454; ii: 15, 70, 78, 168, 169, 215-
225, 229, 265, 446; working
people, attitude towards, i: 5, 16,
86, 87, 92, 93, 158-160, 215, 318,
319-331, 383, 421; ii: 43-45, 59,
75-78, 135, 235-240, 435, 437.
Concrete Costs (with Thompson),
Concrete, Plain and. Reinforced
(with Thompson), Notes on Belt-
ing, On the Art of Cutting Metals,
Piece Rate System, A, Principles of
Scientific Management, The, Shop
Management, special articles and
addresses.
Taylor, Mrs. Frederick W., i: 60, 89,
332, 389, 392; ii: 168, 186, 188,
189, 199, 200, 227, 229, 393, 397,
398, 441, 442, 452.
Taylor, Kempton P. A., ii: 168, 169,

223-232, 252, 262, 278, 452.
Taylor, Robert P. A., i: 29, 31; ii:

168, 226-232, 278, 279, 452.
Taylor Society, the, i: 355; ii: 383,

419.
Taylor System (methods and mechan-
isms of scientific management), a
system of utilizing scientific manage-
ment principles, i: xvi; the genius
of Taylor's system, i: 345-350; its
general ends, standardization and

470

INDEX

control, i: xvi, 345-350, 355, 358;
ii: 16, 17, 61, i20j stop watch
introduced, i: 223; early standard
machine time tables, i: 251, 252,
305; principle of definite task with
reward for accomplishment, intro-
duced, i: 261, 271, 305, 409; ii:
i3> 42, 73-755 128, 129; system
for control of standards developed,
i: 262-2735 ii: 119-138, 174, 335-
3 37; functional organization de-
veloped, i: 284-304; applied to
office work, i: 305, 450; ii: 246;
method of installation of, i: 390;
ii: 179, 333, 354-361; first com-
plete developments of, ii: 175-185;
accounting, q.v., balance of stores,
q.v., belting control, q.v., bulletin
board, q.v., classification and sym-
bolization, q.v., directors, q.v., dis-
ciplinarian, q.v., exception principle,
q.v., functional principle, see or-
ganization, gang boss, q.v., inspec-
tion, q.v., instruction cards, q.v.,
machine control, q.v., methods con-
trol, q.v., order of work, q.v.,
organization, q.v., personnel work,
q.v., planning department, q.v.,
production clerk, q.v., recording
clerk, q.v., repair boss, q.v., rout-
ing, q.v., sales, q.v., speed boss,
q.v., slide rule, q.v., standing order
file, q.v., stores control, q.v., tickler
system, q.v., time study, q.v., tools
control, q.v., wage principles and
methods, q.v. See also Scientific
Managemetit.

Taylor-Zeitschrift, Vienna, i: xxiii.

Taylorism, Cambon, i: xxi.

Theiss, Capt. E., ii: 325.

Theory and. Practice of Scientific Man-
agement, The, Thompson, quoted,
i: 24.

Thomas, Miss M. Carey, ii: 363.
Thompson, Clarence Bertrand, quoted,

i: 24.
Thompson, Henry, ii: 267.
Thompson, Sanford E., i: v, vi, 375,

376, 411, 413, 414, 459, 461, 462,

463; ii: 254, 289, 434.
Thorne, William H., i: 360.
Tickler system, i: 270, 271, 334.
Tilson, John Q., ii: 345, 346, 349,

405.
Time study, i: 73, 74, 223-236, 353,

358, 410-413, 464; ii: 39, 75, 121,

123, 3085 338, 339-
Time Studies for Rate Setting, Mer-
rick, i: 413.
Tobin, John, ii: 403, 404, 406.
Tool Builders Association of the

United States, i: 249.
Tool, The, Horner, quoted, ii: 80.
Tool steel, high-speed. See High-sfeed

steel, Mushet Steel, Self -hardening

steel.
Tools control, i: 266-268, 356, 357,

440; ii: II, 16, 17, 123, 136,

302.
Toronto, University of, ii: 398.
Towne, Henry R., i: xii, xiv, 78, 109,

243> 353? 398, 399) 4oo, 401, 402,

403, 404, 441; ii: 77, 176, 177,

240-245, 254, 256, 346, 362, 364,

369, 371.
Towne plan, the. See Towne, Henry

R.
Trades unions. See Labor unions.
Travis, Walter J., ii: 219.
Tuck School. See Afnos Tuck School.
Tufts, Prof. James A., i: 69, 72, 74.
Tyfes of Management: Unsystema-
tized, Systematized, and Scientific,

Kendall, quoted, ii: 393.

Unions, Trade. See Labor unions.

INDEX

471

Unitarian Church, the, i: 70, 332; ii:

436.
United States Golf Association, ii: 217.
Urgent froblems of the Soviet Regime,

t/ie, quoted, Lenin, i: xxi.

Valentine, Robert G., ii: 417, 418,

419, 423, 424, 426, 427, 429, 445.
Van du Zee, Harold, ii: 188, 194, 195,

197, 198, 199, 200, 204, 205, 210,

211, 212.

Verein Deutscher Ingenieur, i: 246.
Vickers' Sons & Maxim, ii: 114, 116,

154, 325-
"Vickers system," the, ii: 325.

Wadleigh, a, B., ii: 39, 55, 69, 75.

Wage principles and methods, Taylor's
views on, i: 6, 7, 9-13, 53, 114,
139, 179, 182, 208-215, 222, 257,
259, 261, 262, 304-314, 3i6-3i9>
322, 326, 328, 330, 339, 345, 384,
385, 401-409, 451, 460-465; ii:
8, 9, 11-13, 29, 30, 37, 42-45,
47-55> 58, 62-67, 73-75, 120, 126-
129, 132, 133, 135, 136, 138,
139-141, 156-161, 164, 171, 173,
175, 183, 185, 197, 235, 30S, 330,
338, 339, 341, 342, 345, 400, 419,

420, 422, 423, 430, 432, 448. See
also Labor problems. Labor unions.

Wallace, Frank, ii: 278, 279.
Wallichs, Prof. A. O., ii: 259.
Warner, W. R., ii: 387.
Warren, B. H., ii: 243.
Washington Navy Yard, i: 200, 368;

ii: 322.
Waste in Industry, Elimination of,

Committee on i: xvii.
Waste in Industry, quoted, i: xvii.
Watertown Arsenal,- the, i: 16; ii: 158,

163, 330, 333-340, 342-345, 348,

358.

VVatervliet Arsenal, the, ii: 330.
Watt, Rear Admiral R. M., ii: 313,

314, 315, 323.
Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, i:

225, 261.
Weeks, John W., ii: 351.
Welden, Joseph, ii: 22, 100, 140.
Wells, H. G., quoted, i: 93, 94, 263.
Wendell, Prof. George B., ii: 276.
Wentworth, Prof. George A., "Bull,"

i: 72-74, 231.
Wharton, Joseph, i: iii; ii: 7, 8, 9,

10, 14, 47, 113, 139, 145, 146,

151-155.
What is a Puritan? Sherman, quoted,

i: 22, 26, 28, 83.
What is Wrong ivith Cost A ccounting?

Harrison, quoted, i: 365.
Wheeler, Col. C. B., ii: 70, 333, 338,

339, 342, 344-
White, George A., ii: 220.
White, J. Maunsel, ii: 20, 21, 78,

79, 80, 84-91, 94, 97-112, 114-118,

140, 154, 170, 178.
White, Sir William, ii: 274, 275.
Whitney, William C, i: 335, 376, 377,

379, 380, 381; i: 386, 387, 390,

392; ii: 5, 6.
Whitworth, Sir Joseph, i: 100, 109.
Whitworth, Sir Joseph, and Company,

ii: 5.
Williams, John H., i: 355, 356.
Williams, Major, ii: 344.
Willits, Capt. A. B., ii: 325.
Wilson, President Woodrow, i: 97 j ii:

326, 346, 414.
Wilson, William B., i: 179; ii: 343,

345, 346, 348, 405.
Winslow Family, genealogy of, i:

33-39-
Winsloiv Memorial, quoted, i: 33, 35.
Wisconsin State Federation of Labor,

ii: 400, 402.

472

INDEX

Wisconsin, University of, ii: 440.

Woodbury, ii: 243.

Woolston, H. B., ii: 412.

Workers, individuality of, initiative

of, interest of in work, hours of,

etc. See Labor froblems.
World War, the, i: xv; ii: 4, 431,

442-444, 447,

Wyatt, Edith, ii: 413.

Yale & Towne Manufacturing
Company, The, i: xii, no, 353;
ii: 241, 242, 346, 369.

Yale, Linus, i: 1095 ii: 240, 241.

Young America Cricket Club, i: 88.

Young Men's Christian Association,
the, i: 70, 102; ii: 445.

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